Kylene Beers notes that David Coleman dubbed "'text-dependent questions' (as) questions that answers to which may be found in the text or deduced from evidence in the text." The term threw me for a loop when I read it. "Text-dependent"...hmmm, how often have I asked text-dependent questions to my students? How often have I based units of study over years and years of teaching on text-dependence. Too long. I still do it. Doesn't everyone?
The idea that I have subjected generations of students to inauthentic questioning because I did not understand the importance of letting students self discover is a scary one to me. Whether it be through a series of questions I thought the answers were important to in a text, or the guidance of a textbook that has directed me to ask questions that "scaffold" thinking, I have been a classic example of text-dependent learning.
I have pushed students to simply find the answer rather then to think deeper about the text. To ask their own questions. I have not encouraged them to connect to the text, to draw upon the experiences of the characters and relate them to their own life. I have simply taken the book and determined what I thought the authors purpose was and then in turn taught students to believe that was the author's purpose. I did not allow them to draw upon their own experiences and relate them to the text. I made the assumptions that they understood loss, or grief, or happiness they way that I have.
Beers is quoted as saying, "The most rigorous reading the student can do involves more than simply drawing upon the basic definition of words; it involves exploring the understandings of those words that the student brings to the text and weighing them against the apparent understandings of the author."
As I consider these words and the notion behind text-dependent questioning, I can not help but think that I could have done more to support deeper understanding then stifling it. Students should be able to develop their own questions to drive the conversation. This will foster the accountable talk that seems to be at the core of the Common Core in Speaking and Listening Standards.
It's time for me to rethink what conversations about the text look like. What I thought was right I now think was wrong even though I really thought what I was doing made sense. As much as I thought I was helping my students I wasn't. While I don't think I ruined them completely, I certainly did not help them as much as I could have.
