(Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision; thinking about
thinking [metacognition])
•“As you talked to yourself about this problem, what new insights
were generated?” (Thinking about thinking [metacognition]; creating,
imagining, innovating)
Rachel Billmeyer (2009) suggests that questioning to engage the
Habits of Mind while reading is a powerful strategy:
Applying past knowledge to new situations:
How does the passage relate to events or experiences that you
have had? How does knowing the findings of the scientist help you
to understand the physical world?
Questioning and posing problems:
What problems led the scientist to pursue experimentation?
Thinking about thinking:
How did the author cause you to think? To feel?Developing Students’ Skillfulness
in Questioning and Posing Problems
Students can develop skillfulness in questioning by being asked to com-
pose questions for various purposes, including for tests and quizzes, for
study guides, to guide observations while watching an instructional video,
or to prepare for a field trip. For example, teachers might invite students
to read the “Three-Story Intellect Model” in Figure 8.1 and then to com-
pose three first-story, second-story, and third-story questions to be included
in a quiz or a test. Some teachers ask students to prepare questions in a
group to be given to another group. The second group then answers the
questions, and the first group evaluates those answers along with the orig-
inal questions. This activity serves two important purposes. First, students
ask more difficult questions because they want to make them “hard” for
the other group. Second, they must be able to answer their own questions,
which challenges their own thinking as well.
Whatever the subject area, it is helpful for students to pose study ques-
tions for themselves before and during their reading of textual material.
Using Questions to Challenge Students’ Intellect 147