Content-Area Reading: The Inquiry Based Classroom

As teachers and educators, we all know that the best classroom integrates subjects together. But, a new concept has been introduced to me called "content based literacy". Essentially, this means that instead of integrating our science, social studies, and math into our literacy subjects, we actually integrate our reading, writing, and communication strategies into those subjects. And when you do the research, it quite literally JUST MAKES SENSE. 

But, How? 

 

One of the easiest ways to do this is by building a classroom based in inquiry. Inquiry, at its very definition, means an act of asking for information. The basis of this is that the teacher becomes more of a facilitator with the students doing the learning and sometimes, even the teaching. Sound good, yet?

One of the biggest teaching mistakes is that YOU do it ALL. 

 

Student-led classroom models are not new, though. Research and evidence has shown for some time that we as teachers need to be doing less, in order for the students to learn more. By giving the classroom over to the students, the students are more engaged and are actually learning more than when you traditionally "taught". There are less behavioral issues, less interruptions, and less students off-task. Instead, you will see more collaboration,  more student engagement, and more student learning. In fact, some of those students that you traditionally place in that "struggling" category might even surprise you with the level of work that they do when they are allowed to direct their own learning.

But, What Is It?

Inquiry in the classroom seems like such a daunting task, but in theory, it is as simple as four steps, as described by Daniels & Zemelman (2014): 

1. Immersion: where the students become immersed in the content; they are browsing topics, thumbing through articles, discussing theories, reading texts, and jotting wonderings

2. Investigation:  this is where the actual research takes place; students actually are working towards answers and collecting evidence for their answers; they may even take different viewpoints and look for reasons to refute or back them up

3. Connection: students start narrowing down their research and connect information they have gathered on a topic together to create new ideas or theories; they are building their knowledge base

4. Presentation: this is where they take action or share what they have learned with others; it may be a presentation, but it could also be that they actually do something to make a difference or change; important step in the process because it gives an authentic audience for the student to share with (p. 264-265).

How Do I Get Started? 

There are a few different types of inquiry projects that Daniels & Zemelman (2014) describe in their book Subjects Matter, but in my third grade classroom, I would start with using inquiry in science because science lessons seem to lend themselves so easily to inquiry and research. The easiest type of inquiry to start with is the "mini-inquiry" because it is a shorter style of inquiry that can be based off of content that you are teaching within a unit of study (p. 264).

For example, you could start your lesson with a question based in the content area and have students work towards answering the question by doing their own research in groups. This is a great example of keeping students within the curriculum and standards, but allowing them to still take control of their learning within the grade-level content area.

Another way is to start your lesson by building background knowledge and then let students come up with their own questions about the content. This is definitely more student-led and has a lot more freedom for the students to explore areas of the content that interest them.

Or you could be even less structured, and allow students to discover the science around them. For example, you could ask students to come up with a list of questions that they have about the world around them. One student may ask something like, "Why do we cover our nose when we sneeze?" while another wants to know "Why do magnets stick to a fridge and not the window?". These students would both be completing an inquiry based project, but on completely different topic areas.

The Heart of the Inquiry is the Research

The biggest thing to remember is that at the heart of inquiry is the research. So, no matter how you choose to integrate inquiry into your lessons, it is important to remember that students will still need explicit and scaffolded instruction in how to read to learn.

Daniels, H., & Zemelman, S. (2014). Subjects matter: Exceeding standards through powerful content-area reading (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.