Voices from the Middle ■ volume 26 ■ number 3 ■ march 20196

Literacy Teaching Requires Inquiry Worksara kajder ■ shelbie witte

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“What matters about literacy now is what has always mattered: that students and their teachers purposively gather in a place to make language and meaning. If these activities are consistently pursued and nurtured, then all else follows: understanding, knowledge, skill, and even appropriate test scores.” (Christenbury, 2003, p. 46)

An issue on inquiry-based instruction in the ELA classroom feels both bold

and familiar. It isn’t new for us to consider the ways in which the pursuit of authentic, purposeful questions can and does matter in middle grades curricula. Voices writers have explored this in past issues where we considered our values as educators and curricular models, when we asked what it means to succeed or fail, what it means to learn, and what we value about literacy. We mean for this issue to stand on the shoulders of that earlier work but also to nudge the discussion further by emphasizing that to teach through inquiry-rich pedagogies is both fundamental and urgently needed.

Where inquiry-based instruction itself isn’t new, there are several models and approaches in the pages of this issue that offer new directions for what we might do as English teachers alongside our students. At their core are the same ideas: beginning with students’ authentic and purposeful questions, making space to do supported and engaged research, sharing findings and ideas in a space that provides students a true platform, and immersing students in genuine reflection on the process (which, in the best of cases opens new questions). Whether we are talking about Genius Hour, project-based learning, Passion Project–based learning, or particular forms of personalized learning, this is all work

centered in our students’ wonderings and in teaching that actively helps them pursue next ideas. This is reading and writing in action and for action, requiring literacy practices and work that richly and overtly transcend the curricular guide.

Beginning with our students’ curiosity and wonderings requires some disruption. In curricula where we regularly receive content more than we create or construct it, doing authentic inquiry work alongside students means that we have to rethink our own roles as teachers. It means a different kind of active structuring in our classrooms. And, as we learn from Richard Beach’s Leading the Call article, this work hinges on “balance between fostering open-ended, inquiry-based interactions and some degree of teacher guidance related to acquiring knowledge relevant to an inquiry” (p. 12). We lead and we get out of the way.

This issue is rich with the stories of teachers who are working to learn alongside their students in inquiry-driven contexts. Ricki Ginsberg and Pamela Coke share their experiences in supporting models of Genius Hour, reminding us that “for students to emerge into the world as free thinking, creatively minded adults, a commitment and respect for their learning interests and passions is critical” (p. 21). Jessica West and Brooke Franklin unpack an approach to Passion Projects as a mechanism for helping students to pursue their interests and queries. And Karla V. Kingsley, Margo Collier, Rebecca Sánchez, Yen Pham, and Alissa Sanchez help us think about a yearlong inquiry model framed by the Hero’s Journey.

As is the case with many ideas in teaching, what “counts” as inquiry work can sometimes become blurry—the term

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7OFFICE HOURS ■ kajder and witte

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can be applied to activities to which it just doesn’t fit. Nicholas Stenske and Mary F. Wright help us to see the ways in which an inquiry project elevates a research project. Rebekah O’Dell challenges our thinking about vocabulary instruction, injecting student curricular inquiry through the implementation of vocabulary Field Guides. And, Dannielle Lillge and Alison Utley Crane help us see how inquiry is key to a reading-conference. In each of these pieces, the authors also tackle (and even reclaim) words like uncertainty and risk, reminding us of the importance of the work that we do in our literacy classrooms and the messiness of true learning.

Many of this month’s columnists offer ideas about what authentic inquiry instruction entails and what it opens for students. Linda Rief and her eighth grade students call our attention to the role that choice plays in unearthing our students’ most compelling and necessary questions. Jason Griffith offers a “questionception” that helps us explore the questions that three teachers of YA literature find most useful in leading students’ readings of YA texts. And, Sarah Brown Wessling guides us to examine our core teaching truths.

These are important, sometimes brave, and consistently compelling ideas about what it means to teach middle level ELA in a way that honors, welcomes,

amplifies, and challenges our students’ inquiry. We are excited by the models they offer and the thinking that they invite when we consider our own instruction and work with kids. That’s what the majority of these articles ask of us, that we take up the ideas and teach differently.

There are often times that we know better than we actually do as teachers, but this simply can’t be one of those areas. Inquiry-based instruction is not something we only do with our honors and advanced classes. It isn’t something we turn to after we’ve covered the required curriculum or at the end of the semester or quarter or when state testing has ended. We need less emphasis on test scores and more engagement in real learning. We need less direction and more discovery. Read together, this issue calls for English teaching that is steeped in authentic, relevant, curious literacy learning that poses questions, sparks student agency, redefines our roles as teachers, and necessitates that we all grow. It’s time for us to do better—for every learner and in each middle level classroom.

reference

Christenbury, L. (2003). What matters about literacy now? Voices from the Middle, 10(3), 46-47.

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Voices from the Middle ■ volume 26 ■ number 3 ■ march 20198

Richard Beach is professor emeritus of English education at the University of Minnesota. He is coauthor on more than 25 books on teaching English language arts and literacy research, including two 2019 releases, Teaching Language as Action in the ELA Classroom with Faythe Beauchemin and Languaging Relationships for Transforming the Literacy and Language Arts Classroom with David Bloome. A former president of the Language Research Association, Dr. Beach has been at the forefront of work in critical inquiry in English language arts.

Deb Caletti is an award-winning author and National Book Award finalist. Her many books for young adults include The Nature of Jade, Stay, The Last Forever, Essential Maps for the Lost, and Honey, Baby Sweetheart, winner of the Washington State Book Award, the PNBA Best Book Award, and a finalist for the California Young Reader Medal and the PEN USA Award. Her books for adults include He’s Gone, The Secrets She Keeps, and What’s Become of Her. Her most recent release, A Heart in the Body in the World, has been named a 2019 Michael L. Printz Honor Award by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA).

Ricki Ginsberg is an assistant professor of English education at Colorado State University. Her research interests include educational equity, teacher education, multicultural young adult literature, culturally responsive pedagogies, the recruitment of teachers of color, and multiracial identities. She is assistant editor of The ALAN Review, president-elect for the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English (ALAN), and director of the Diverse Leadership in Education program. Her work has been published in Research in the Teaching of English, Teachers College Record, Journal of Adolescent Research, Multicultural Perspectives, Journal of Human Rights, English Journal, Voices from the Middle, and The ALAN Review.

Rebekah O’Dell currently teaches middle school English in Richmond, Virginia. She is the coauthor—with Allison Marchetti—of Writing with Mentors and Beyond Literary Analysis. They are also the founders of Moving Writers, a popular blog that focuses on middle level and high school writing instruction. She gathers inspiration from traveling to help educators and their students with the difficult and transformative work of teaching real writing.

featured authors

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