Students writing their own inquiries

I have the good fortune of working at a charter school with a forward-thinking administration who allow teachers to try new things. A few years ago when I had the option of choosing my own elective, my principal showed a large level of trust when he allowed me to follow through with an idea to teach an entire class based on inquiry. Two years later, I have taught two sections of this Inquiry-based class and was getting ready to have the first group again in an advanced “Inquiry II” class. My co-worker (Jeremy Thomas, who teaches Middle School Inquiry) and I wanted to increase the level of difficulty and take advantage of the fact that these students were now veterans in the world of Inquiry. We believed for students to truly show mastery of inquiry that it would be best for them to demonstrate through creation. We decided to push our students to write and teach their own inquiry. Additionally, they would complete three other high level inquiries through the semester. We had lofty goals but believed our students would be able to reach them.

The Inquiry II class was made up of 11 students, all having had Inquiry I as a prerequisite . It ranged from 9th-12th graders and was an elective class.

The class schedule operated with completing teacher-created inquiries on Monday through Thursday and working on producing their own inquiries on Fridays. After a few days of introduction for the class, I introduced the inquiry writing process to my students. I explained to them that they will be put in the driver’s seat. They would be choosing a topic, creating them inquiry and then teaching that inquiry in a class. I also told them that there could be an opportunity to have these inquiries published on the C3 Teachers website if they spent time and effort creating a well made inquiry. With that the students took off. There was a lot of student engagement in the inquiry writing project because they were able to choose topics they were passionate about. The topic ranged from the NFL, to the dropping of the atomic bomb and animal testing. In total, they most likely spent nearly 30 class days working on these projects. Yes, it ended up being much more time than we had originally planned. Overall, there are three takeaways I have from this: Student choice got them started, productive struggle keep things moving along, and the opportunity to act on their inquiry design took students over the top.

Student choice in this project initiated our work and provide the initial engagement that set the stage for our work. Do not get me wrong, there were plenty of days with eye rolls and loud sighs. However, they were motivated by this project being that it was something they chose to do. It was a topic that they at least had some interest in and cared about the answer to the question.

The productive struggle my students encountered was another motivating factor. When I explained to the students that they will be doing work that people with college degrees do, they were excited. It drove them to work even harder, to find good sources and to step up to the challenge of things like arguments stems. Each day had its own challenge but these students were willing to meet it. I have been hearing a lot in education about productive struggle. It is the idea that grappling with an idea can lead to deeper learning.. In this case, they were doing a high level task, getting frustrated and struggling many days, yet that very struggle paid dividends.

The action in this assignment was the opportunity for students to teach the inquiry. Although as a teacher I may be biased, there is a certain level of knowledge and understanding you have to have to teach something. It goes beyond being able to answer a question and use source. Teaching requires you to have a working understanding of all views of a topic and to be able to remove your bias to present to a group of students. For high schooler students, this was a tall challenge. Yet, at the end of the class my 11 students had taught their inquiries in 10 different classes and were able to lead other students in answering their questions. I was proud and impressed At the end of that week, I could not believe that these students had actually researched, written and taught an inquiry. Something I did not do until my master’s program! It proved to be that challenging students to create an inquiry, although hard will pay dividends in their learning. I would challenge every teacher to do the same in their classes.

So, how did it go. My students are probably the best sources for that judgement.  Here’s what they had to say.

“It made me appreciate the amount of work that goes into creating an Inquiry. The most challenging part was finding reliable sources and completing the overview.” Sophie K.

“Personally, I have a desire to be a special education teacher. It helped me develop skills I will need in the future for this career.” June B.

“Teaching and learning about inquiries have helped me develop more of my beliefs and go beyond just surface level.” Sorious K.

“At first it was a daunting task however I enjoyed the process and I am excited to be apart of the Inquiry movement.” Stanton T.

“Teaching my own inquiry helped me understand how beneficial the inquiry platform is as opposed to the norm in history classes.” Philip T.

“Creating and teaching an inquiry helped expand on my complex thinking and helped me put myself into other perspectives as I completed the research.” Savannah T.