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Literacy 7-12

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Literacy 7-12 > Strategies > Prompts & Questions

Prompts & Questions

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Overview

Providing guiding prompts and questions for students to use when reading or participating in discussions deepens their understanding of texts and gives them space to question and grapple with issues of power, justice, and equity. Depending on the types of prompts, they can raise Socratic questions about the purpose, validity, evidence, assumptions, meaning, and perspectives of the texts.

Use It in the Classroom

Watch how this teacher empowers her students to share their perspective on a challenging discussion prompt. Students must cite evidence from multiple texts to support their answers as they share their arguments and questions in a Socratic seminar. With time to plan and supports like graphic organizers, the teacher has meaningfully designed different ways for students to engage in the process and share their views.

  • It is important for teachers to be selective and intentional in the prompts they ask and also to allow students to ask their own questions. Open-ended prompts can serve as a guide to probe students' thinking and direct their Attention to specific elements in a text. Questions like "Who is the ideal audience?", "Where does this text come from?", and "Who gets to speak and who doesn't?" focus on the purpose, author, and voices in the texts. However, questions like "Is the conclusion reached credible?" or "What is taken for granted here?" examine themes around validity, assumptions, and bias. All of these examples can empower students to manipulate and engage with texts to develop their Critical Literacy and Reasoning.

    • Design It into Your Product

    Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.

    Starting at 1:35, see how products like ThinkCerca use prompts and questions to push students to reflect on what they have learned and to engage with a digital text during a mini-lesson. The prompts allow for students to make connections, summarize portions, and assess their understanding. This allows students to engage more deeply with the content while also giving helpful feedback to the teacher on student progress.

  • Products can embed text-dependent questions for students to critically think and question the texts they read. These can be in the form of an annotation or before or after a reading. Targeting specific Disciplinary Literacy questions like "How does the historical context shape this text?" or "How does the evidence support the author's claim?" can encourage students to read like a content expert.
    • View References

    Resources

    Below are additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
    Examples

    Accountable Talk

    Printable accountable talk stems that prompt metacognitive reflection

    Examples

    Critical Thinking Questions

    Examples of questions that map to different critical thinking skills

    Examples

    Questioning the Text

    Ninth grade lesson plan with questions for taking a critical stance

    Examples

    Socratic Seminar Guide

    ReadWriteThink steps and sample lesson plans for conducting Socratic seminars

    Examples

    Types of Socratic Questions

    Examples of Socratic questions to probe critical thinking

    Research

    Text-Dependent Questions

    Guide that explains what text-dependent questions are and provides research and guidance for using these effectively with adolescents

    Factors Supported by this Strategy

    Student Background
    Adverse Experiences
    Literacy Environment
    Primary Language
    Safety
    Sleep
    Socioeconomic Status
    Social and Emotional Learning
    Self-regulation
    Cognition
    Attention
    Cognitive Flexibility
    Inhibition
    Long-term Memory
    Metacognition
    Reasoning
    Short-term Memory
    Speed of Processing
    Visual Processing
    Working Memory
    Literacy
    Argumentative Reasoning
    Background Knowledge
    Critical Literacy
    Disciplinary Literacy
    Inferencing
    Syntax
    Vocabulary

    More Instructional Approaches Strategies

    Discipline-specific Writing

    Interpreting and composing discipline-specific texts requires tailoring literacy strategies, like annotating or asking questions, to the disciplinary goals and practices.

    Multiple Texts

    Providing multiple texts on the same topic or theme allows students to interact with multiple perspectives and develop their critical thinking skills.

    Direct Instruction: Vocabulary

    Seeing and using new words repeatedly and in many contexts is critical for Vocabulary acquisition.

    Mindfulness Activities

    Through short but regular mindfulness activities, students develop their awareness and ability to focus.

    Mentor Texts

    By observing, rereading, and closely analyzing published writing, students see examples and learn the strategies of good writing that they can integrate into their own Composition.

    Authentic Audiences & Purposes

    When adolescents can connect and communicate with authentic audiences about their interests and values, reading and writing become more personally meaningful and relevant.

    Direct Instruction: Comprehension Strategies

    As part of a varied curriculum, explicit instruction in reading comprehension strategies from teachers can help older students use strategies meaningfully and flexibly.

    Multimodal Instruction

    Instruction in multiple formats allows students to activate different cognitive skills and Background Knowledge that are necessary to remember procedural and content information.

    Guided Inquiry

    During guided inquiry, teachers foster student autonomy by designing lessons centered on meaningful questions in which students locate, analyze, and present relevant information on their own or in small groups.

    Provide Writing Models

    When teachers provide students with model texts for their writing, they learn to identify effective elements to incorporate into their own writing.

    Reading Conferences

    Teachers can provide individualized support through one-on-one conferences to assess reading comprehension, understanding of content, and spark further interest in reading.

    Independent Reading

    Independent reading promotes literacy by emphasizing student choice with teacher support in selecting books, as well as setting the expectations that everyone is a reader.

    Family Engagement

    Students whose families are involved and feel valued within the school community are less likely to miss school, which research has shown can cause students to fall behind academically.

    Direct Instruction: Writing Strategies

    Explicitly teaching strategies for planning, writing, and revising texts improves students' writing quality.

    Pre-reading Questioning

    When teachers ask questions or have students create questions before introducing a text, they activate student interest and help them assess what they already know about a given topic.

    Direct Instruction: Web-based Reading Strategies

    Research shows that, along with traditional reading comprehension strategies, students use unique strategies to read the non-linear, hyperlinked structure of online texts.

    Direct Instruction: Internet Search

    Teaching students how to effectively search the internet is critical for helping them learn how to find accurate and relevant information and aids in developing information literacy.

    Strengths-based Approach

    A strengths-based approach is one where educators intentionally identify, communicate, and harness students' assets, across many aspects of the whole child, in order to empower them to flourish.

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