“It’s the zombie apocalypse!” shouts my student. “Not really, but turn that statement into a question, Is it the zombie apocalypse?” I respond. While I was disappointed one of my students thought a video showing pilgrims on the hajj in Mecca were zombies, I was pleased by the overall level of engagement that my students experienced. As my students watched the video, they were asked to generate as many questions as they could about what they were viewing. The activity worked really well because they were not expected to have any prior knowledge about the topic. This allowed my students to ask as many questions as they could about what they were viewing. Students who normally do not feel confident in their knowledge of the topic were actively participating in the activity. My students were curious and able to verbalize what they curiosity.
I created my first C3 inquiry this fall on the spread of Islam in a workshop presented by Drew Hammill, a former Social Studies Curriculum Specialist in the Charlotte Mecklenburg School District. Drew demonstrated a technique in the workshop called the Question Formulation Technique. I decided to use it with my students to set the stage for my inquiry unit. The students watched a video of pilgrims on the hajj to set the stage for our unit. The questions that my 6th grade students created were not all related to zombies, most of the questions they created were very insightful. They wondered, “why are there so many people? Why is the giant box important to so many people? Why are they wearing black and white? What are they worshipping? Is this their culture?”
I started this lesson about a month before spring break, shortly after we experienced a snow event and lost all of our days off of school until spring break. The long stretch of school without a break was on the minds of my students and fellow staff members. That week in the staff lounge, many of my co-workers were mentioning how difficult managing their classes had been. In my classroom, after doing the QFT method, I had a classroom filled with engaged students who were excited and curious.
I enjoyed using inquiry to drive the instruction about a delicate topic in class. We were learning about the tenets of the Islamic faith, their early empires and the African trading empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai. I was presenting my students with facts about these civilizations and it was engaging to them that there was no right or wrong answer for the focus of the unit. The fact was that these civilizations adopted Islam as their faith. The fact is that Islam is the world’s second largest religion. The question I posed them was why. Why did that new religion spread so quickly? Was it caused by global trade in the region? Was it caused by conflict that that created the Muslim Empires? Was it caused by the preservation of knowledge in Muslim cities and new innovations that were created by these civilizations? I did not conclude this unit with a test. Instead, the students formal assessment was to write a reflection using evidence from the documents they explored in the inquiry unit to support their opinion. It felt refreshing to allow all of my students to feel as though their opinions were correct and valued.
Now, I am looking for the next engaging question to start engagement for the new school year.
