Asking Questions and Van Allsburg

Who doesn't love Chris Van Allsburg?!?! I seriously love his books. He might be my favorite children's book author....although I have about 50 favorites! Anyway, last week we spent a lot of time studying and analyzing The Sweetest Fig. If you haven't read it, it's a MUST READ! Our purpose for reading this book was to learn about different types of questions, ask questions (thick and thin) before, during, and after reading, and answer questions (the ones that can be answered in the text and the ones that can't).

This is what our week looked like:

Day 1: Read aloud The Sweetest Fig while stopping to model how to ask questions. Stop about halfway through the book and ask students to turn and talk to ask a question they have for the rest of the book.

Day 2: Finish reading The Sweetest Fig, students write questions they have on post-its. Choose our burning question that we are still left with after reading.

this looks better in person, I promise!

Day 3: Students sat in groups to discuss the burning question. I gave each group a copy of the last three pages so students could use the pictures and the text to support their ideas. It went sooo well!! I wish I had pictures of this, but I was so engrossed in what they were saying, I forgot!

Day 4: We wrote our  answers to our burning question, using text support (and inferential skills - even though they don't know it...yet)

Sorry, these are a little hard to read! I got these great templates from the wonderful Doris at Third Grade Thinkers!

Day 5: On our final day, we sorted our questions into the QAR categories. This is our second go at this - and I was impressed at their ability to recognize what kind of questions they asked. Now...to get them to ask those kinds of questions! Of course, I forgot to take a picture of this too - I will add it tomorrow!

Hope you all had a great Monday!!