The Art of Inquiry (PDF)

Asking questions is one of the most essential functions of teaching. In this book, the authors Nancy Lee Cecil and Jeanne Pfeifer show teachers how to develop both their own questioning skills and those of their students. The authors explain how to model provocative, open-ended questions, and provides many useful teacher- and student-directed questioning strategies. From these strategies, children learn how to ask questions that enable them to construct their own meaning from what they read and experience.This revised edition includes several new questioning strategies. In addition, many of the strategies found in the original edition have been updated and/or expanded to reflect today's best practices in educaiton.The Art of Inquiry is divided into two sections. Part I identifies the many types of questions and the thinking skills they promote (such as knowledge, comprehesion, analysis, and evaluation), and discusses how to foster the free flow of questions and anwers. Part II provides practical questioning strategies and activities (for example, Polar Opposite, Think Aloud, and Self-Instruction) that stimulate the highest critical and creative thinking skills. The authors also show how asking the right questions can help children to understand content, learn to ask effective questions of themselves, and make clear connections between diverse thoughts.