How to Plan for Qta
1. Determine the major understandings
- What should students develop from the text?
- What problems might they encounter?
2. Segment the text
- Decide where to stop reading and initiate discussions
3. Articulate Queries
- Create Initiating Queries and Follow-Up Queries that will help students develop understandings of the text ideas.
How to Teach Qta
1. Provide students with materials
- Provide students the types of questions they are expected to ask about the texts they read. These can be given to students in a handout, projected on the board, or made into a poster and attached to the classroom wall. Students should have access to these questions whenever they’re needed.
2. Model QtA
- Use a text from class
- Demonstrate for students how the QtA questions can be asked in ways that apply directly to the content of the text.
3. Give students opportunities to practice
- Put students in pairs to practice questioning the author together while you monitor
- Provide additional modeling and clarification.
The goal is to make the questioning process automatic for students so they use it on their own!
Information Retrieved from:
Beck, I. L., & McKeown, M. G. (2002). Questioning the author: Making sense of social studies. Educational Leadership. November 2002, 45-47
Beck, I. L., & McKeown, M. G. (2006). Improving comprehension with question the author: A fresh and expanded view of a powerful approach. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.
Beck, I. L., & McKeown, M. G. (2002). Questioning the author: Making sense of social studies. Educational Leadership. November 2002, 45-47
Beck, I. L., & McKeown, M. G. (2006). Improving comprehension with question the author: A fresh and expanded view of a powerful approach. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.