This is the first blog post in a series on sources as the Building Blocks of Inquiry.
In the short story mystery, The Copper Beeches, Dr. John Watson inquires to his flat mate, the famous literary detective, Sherlock Holmes, how he can sit for hours on end in wait for the next break in the case. “‘Data! data! data!’ he cried impatiently. ‘I can’t make bricks without clay.’” Holmes’ swift retort, for all mystery nerds out there, is an exemplar of the private detective’s methodology of deductive reasoning. For Watson the question of whodunit weighs heavier by the hour as the line of investigation stagnates. Yet, for Holmes’, the line of inquiry simply cannot progress without information, evidence, or sources. The questions of why, how, or in what way the crime was committed are of no use here, as they are disempowered by the need for new information. In fact, those same questions remain dependent on the information gathered in the process of investigation.
I cite the above story for two reasons. Firstly, you can never go wrong with a good Sherlock Holmes reference. But secondly, the simplicity of Holmes’ exchange with Watson betrays a deep connection between the questions we ask and the information we seek to answer those questions. It may be “simplicity itself” for great detectives like Sherlock Holmes to patiently wait for the right information to satisfy great questions. But for the rest of us mortals in the real world, this is quite tricky. As teachers devoted to the process of inquiry, this can be even more difficult as we try to formulate inquiries with rigorous but relevant compelling questions, supporting questions that methodically scaffold our students’ learning, and tasks that reveal what students have learned. In the haste of the school year, sources are often left to the last minute, almost as stop-gaps or fillers that will get the job done. But just like with our detective, the questions (and even the tasks) are inert without sources to propel the investigation. In fact, what is there to investigate if there are no sources?
Of course I am not suggesting that teachers out there are not even assigning sources to their students. On the contrary. We live in a digital world where a social studies teacher can now access a vast array of sources from across the globe to add to an inquiry. Quantity is not the challenge. It is the quality. And perhaps even more, it is the relevance of the source to the inquiry. It is the question of what will this source DO for the investigation? What direction will it take the investigation? What assumptions will it challenge? What narratives will it unravel?
I have often noticed that in the IDM Blueprint structure itself, the “Featured Sources” occupy the bottom rung of the architecture. Both in a symbolic and very real sense, these sources hold up the rest of the inquiry. They are the “clay,” the building blocks of the inquiry. You can have the most sophisticated questions, the most calibrated tasks, but without sources, the inquiry falls apart.
It is with this observation that I would like to spend time discussing the ways in which teachers, particularly those new to inquiry, can use sources in a variety of ways to breathe life into their students’ inquiry experiences. For starters, let me issue the first task that I think all teachers who are committed to inquiry should step up to: become source collectors. What do I mean? Literally, become someone who collects sources. All the time. Articles, editorials, excerpts from novels, podcast transcripts, YouTube videos, Ted Talks, Pew Research graphs, old magazine covers, Twitter (or I guess now X) posts, and even those odd quotes you might screen shot on social media. Collect them. Collect them for an inquiry that you are about to try. Even better, collect them for an inquiry you have not yet built (more on that later). Many teachers already do this. But as you begin to teach with an inquiry lens, these collections of sources become part of a larger process, connected to a larger goal. The kinds of sources you use can impact the questions you ask and even the tasks you ask your students to tackle. So to borrow from Mr. Holmes, “you cannot do inquiry without sources.”
Read all the posts in this series.
- Post #1 The Building Blocks of Inquiry
- Post #2 Sources Talking to Other Sources
- Post #3 Going to the Source
