Santori, D., & Belfatti, M. (2017). Do text-dependent questions need to be teacher-dependent? Close reading from another angle. The Reading Teacher, 20(6), 649-657.
“Never do for your students what they can do for themselves.” These words from a trusted mentor have long been a watchword in my own teaching, whether I was working with elementary, middle school, high school, or college students. Yes, we have to model and guide students as they develop competencies, but at some point learners have to take charge of the learning process, and teachers have to trust them to be able to do that. It’s hard to do that; we want to support and scaffold learners through the process, but if we retain too much control, those learners may not develop as well as they could with more agency and ownership of their learning.
The principle passed along by my mentor is what Santori and Belfatti’s article is about. These two authors are teacher-researchers who worked with elementary school students as they learned how to do close reading of texts. They wanted to know what kinds of questions their third and fourth grade students would raise “of their own volition” (p. 651), and what close reading practices they used as they generated and answered those questions.
“Close reading” as defined in the Common Core State Standards has been on many teachers’ minds since those standards came out, and there has been much written about how close reading skills might be developed, but teachers still may not be sure how to best help students do that kind of reading. Santori and Belfatti provide a clear definition on page 650; close reading involves deep processing of complex texts, with an essential element being the citing of evidence from the text to support conclusions. Teacher scaffolding of close reading typically involves teacher modeling of the process, as well as “text-dependent” question prompts from the teacher. The ultimate goal is for students to engage in this process independently, but teacher-centered strategies and activities won’t get them there; they must eventually ask and answer their own questions.
Can third and fourth graders do that? Santori and Belfatti present evidence that suggests they can. The authors asked their students to read complex texts and write their own questions on sticky notes. Santori’s third graders read narratives (folktales and fables) and Belfatti’s fourth graders read informational texts (science). The students then worked together to answer their own and peers’ questions. The authors looked at the nature of the questions students raised, classifying those questions using Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey’s six text-dependent question types (listed in Table 2 on page 652, along with a reference to an article by Fisher and Frey). They also observed students’ processes while they did these tasks.
Santori and Belfatti found that both groups could raise a variety of questions of all six types without teacher prompting. Their questions led to discussions that went into depth. Examples of each type of question are given in Table 3 on page 652, and vignettes are provided from both the third and fourth grade group. In general, the authors concluded that students were “engaged and actively participating” (p. 653) in the process.
As I neared the end of this article, the big question in my mind was, “How does a teacher facilitate this kind of “engaged and active participation” in the classroom? It is heartening to know that the children observed here were able to generate their own questions and work productively at answering those questions. But as a longtime educator who has seen many classrooms, I know this did not occur on its own. These two teachers had to build an environment of trust that allowed for risk-taking, and they had to be willing to let students know that they trusted them.
The article concludes with some suggestions on how to build that kind of environment, but it’s only a start. In the article’s final section, “Fostering Dialogic Discussions and Close Reading” (pp. 656-657), some general ideas are given, but the “Take Action!” sidebar on 656 provides more specifics. There are only five points there, but they’re good ones. Of course, the selection of high-quality texts comes first. If a text is engaging, that’s half the battle. The use of sticky notes to record questions is something used in a number of teaching approaches and is familiar. Teacher modeling comes in here when students are not asking enough different kinds of questions; some types of questions may need to be taught, and teachers may need to ask students to generate certain types of questions. The suggestion that students work in peer groups and cite textual evidence fits with definitions of close reading as well as with the “gradual release of responsibility” frameworks (e.g., Fisher and Frey’s framework).
The last suggestion was my favorite: “Manage the discussion by using a combination of teacher talk moves” (p. 656). We are given just an example or two of those; I wanted more, and in fact that kind of thing was what I was hoping to get more of in this article. I often tell my teacher candidate students to carefully observe what teachers do and say in the classroom, and what seems to work and what does not. It’s not magic; specific kinds of teacher behaviors and teacher talk can make a big difference in building a classroom environment that can foster the kind of “agency” and ownership that is described by Santori and Belfatti.
This article only scratches the surface on how to help young readers build independence as they deeply process and comprehend texts. I plan to dig deeper into the issue of teacher talk moves, and how they might help or hinder students’ development of that independent processing.
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