QAR Half Questions

The Question-Answer Relationships strategy, or QAR,  makes connections between text and students prior knowledge (Billmeyer, 2006).  Along with the connections between text and student the questions require the students to think at four different levels.  Another great benefit with this strategy is that the teacher can write the questions at the different levels or the students can write the questions.  By writing the questions the students can show their mastery of the subject and the levels of questioning.

In my 6th grade band class we recently worked on a QAR project and the technique that we used was called "Half Questions".  I gave the students a series of questioning prompts, or half questions, and asked the students to finish the questions.  In my pre-teaching activity the students finished the question "How do you.....?".  When using the QAR strategy students can write the complete question, but I thought that this would be a great way to start this rather than writing a whole question.  As a teacher, preparing the half questions is not as easy as it sounds.  Some of the questions were easy to prepare, but some did create some issues.  More on that later.

Whether it is the teacher preparing the questions or the students, the questions should focus on four levels from easy to find to more abstract answers.  This most basic of the questions are "Right There" questions.  The answers to these questions are found in the text and it is found word for word.    These answers require very little think time.  Questions that are a little harder are called "Think and Search" questions.  These type of questions require the students to find the answer by reading between the lines of the text.  By using inference on two or more lines of text, the student should be able to find the answer.  Most of these types or questions are answered with descriptions or explanations.  The two previous types of questions are text based questions with the answers in the text.  The following questions are reader based and the answers are from the students knowledge.  The third type of question is called "Author and You".  The students need to be able to find the answer by using what they know, what is presented in the text, and how the two are related.  Most of the answers for these types of questions are comparisons.  The final type of question is the "On My Own" question.  For these answers the student needs to use their background knowledge on the give topic.  Most times there is no correct or incorrect answer for these types of questions.

For this assignment, I had my students read a passage in their band book, Power of the Winds Book 1, concerning eighth notes.  After the students read the passage I put the "How do you...?" half question on the screen at the front of the room.  We then worked on completing the question using the four types of questioning levels.  The first question the created was "How do you count eighth notes?"  The answer was right in the text.  The "Think and Search" question was "How do you know how many counts a single eighth note receives?".  The answer was not directly in the text, but by using the given information you can figure out the answer.  "How do you know how many eighth notes are in a measure?" was the "Author and You" question.  By using the information in the text and their background knowledge, the students can find the answer.  The final question was an "On Your Own" and it was "How do you play eighth notes on your instrument?"  This was a question that was different for the different instruments based on their instrument knowledge.

The next day I had the students work on some questions by themselves.  Below is a copy of what they did:

EIGHTH NOTE “HALF QUESTIONS”

Name:                                                                                                           Period:                    

1.  How do you                                                                                                 

                                                                   ?       Right There

          Answer:

2.  Where would you find                                                                                      

                                                                   ?       Think and Search

          Answer:

3.  What are two things                                                                                

                                                                             ?       Author and You

          Answer:

4.  What is the difference between                                                            

                                                                             ?       On Your Own

          Answer:

5.  Why do eighth notes                                                                                

                                                                             ?       Wild Card                 

          Answer:

HALF QUESTIONS

If you really know a topic, you will be able to write questions about it.  Most of your teachers spend quite a bit of time coming up with questions for your assignments, and now it is your time to be on the other side of the desk.  I will give you a “starter” question and you will need to finish it.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

“HALF QUESTIONS” DIRECTIONS

On the other side of this sheet you will find five “starter” questions.  All of your questions will be about eighth notes.  At the end of the question you will see what type of a question it needs to be (Right There, On Your Own, etc.).  I will have the definitions, or what type of answer it needs to be, on the screen at the front of the room.  You will need to read the “starter” question and the type of question and finish the question.  You can use the text on page 13 in your book for help.  For question number 5, it is a wild card.  You need to finish the question using one of the earlier strategies and tell me what it is after the word “Wild Card”.  After you finish your questions, exchange with a partner and have the partner answer your questions.  At the end of class, make sure your name is on the paper and hand it in the basket.

WHAT YOU WILL BE GRADED ON

1.  Finish each of the questions.

2.  Each question is finished in the correct style.

3.  You let me know the style of the “Wild Card” question.

4.  Your name is on your paper and it is handed in the basket.

TYPES OF QUESTIONS

“RIGHT THERE”

The answers for “Right There” questions will be found word for word in the text.

“THINK AND SEARCH”

The answers for “Think and Search” questions are in the text, but you will need to read between the lines to find them.  You will need to formulate the answer from one or more lines of the text.

“AUTHOR AND YOU”

The answers for “Author and You” questions are not in the text.  You will need to use the information that the author has given you and your background information to get to the answer.

“ON YOUR OWN”

The answers for “On Your Own” are not in the text.  The answers are related to the topic, but they come solely from your background information.

The students did a really good job on the assignment except for question #2.  The word "find" in the question lead the students to make it a "Right There" question.  When I try this exercise again, I will definitely change that question.

This QAR exercise is something that can be done with any topic and at any time.  It does take some planning time to put together.  I recommend trying it with a co-worker before handing it out to the students.  Hopefully they can help you through any issues with the questions.

Source:

Billmeyer, R., (2006). Strategies to engage the mind of the learner: Building strategic             learners (2nd ed.). Omaha, NE: Rachel & Associates, Inc.

Word Wall

Word wall.  I have heard of word walls many times before, but primarily in elementary classrooms.  My students are in middle school and way too old for a word wall.  Well, I found out this year that that is not true.

A word wall is an interactive tool to help students with letters, words or terms.  They can be used from pre-K classrooms all the way through high school.  The word walls can also be very flexible and change with the different units that you are working on at that time.  The best part about word walls are that they can be used in any class in any subject.

At the beginning of the school year, I was talking to our orchestra teacher Lisa about trying a word wall in our classroom.  We started talking about it and what type of items we would put up on the wall.  After a few days of going through our beginning music books, we came up with a pretty good list of words, symbols and terms that would work for our beginning instrumentalists.  I then created a flip chart with the word or term and picture of it on one side and the definition of it when you flip it open.  Our wall started with fifteen entries.  Lisa created a great banner for the top of our wall and the words were added.  And then it sat there.

For weeks none of our students looked at the board.  We talked about it in class and how great the information was on the entries.  Still nothing.  There were many days that I asked my students to go find a term or word on the wall and they did a great job of finding them, but if I did not push them, nothing.  Then the day arrived.  The students were taking an formative assessment on the different types of rests that we were studying, and one of my students got up and went to the work wall to look at the difference between a half rest and whole rest.  It was like the heavens opened up and beams of light filled the room.  I was so happy!!  

Ever since that day, more and more students are using the wall and we are up to twenty entries.  Lisa and I have also kept track of words that we use in class that our students many not understand.  Words like beat and pitch are words that we use all the time, but are new to our beginning students.  We have added these words to a list that we will use next year.  

This has been a very easy and stress free way of introducing a new literacy strategy to our students that has definitely paid off.

First Post

How do we incorporate literacy standards into our "specials" classes?  This has been a question that has bothered me for a long time.  All of our students need to read in our classes, but how do we help students develop this skill in our classes?  

I don't have any training in that area.  What if I do it wrong?  It will take too much time to prepare and grade.  How do I grade literacy materials?  I'd like to do it if I had some help or direction.  Are there any other people out there that are doing it so I can see some examples?  Is this really part of my job?

The above are thoughts or questions that I have had, or other people I have talked to have had, when this topic comes up.  A few years ago I was able to attend a workshop with Doug Buehl, if you have the chance you MUST go to one, and his topic was reading in the content area.  It was an outstanding workshop, but I wanted to find something that was even more specific to my content area.  After doing some searching, there was not much out there to find.  It was at this point that I decided to take matters into my own hand.

This past summer I started to work on my 316, which is the Wisconsin reading teacher certification.  Even though I have only finished one of the six classes, I have learned some great techniques on how I can incorporate reading into my band classes.  My goal of this blog is to share some of my experiences with you.  Hopefully I can show you some of the things that work and some of the things that I should try again with a different spin.

Please let me know what you think or if you have any questions.  Hopefully we can all work on this together to help our music students see how reading is important in all of their classes.