Using Political Cartoons to Improve Your Verbal Questioning
I often ask the students about the types of instructional activities that they look forward to doing during their student teaching practicum and later when they are teaching in their own classroom. One of the most frequently mentioned activities is leading a classroom discussion. I then ask them to describe the behaviors they envision their students exhibiting during those classroom discussions. Usually, I receive responses such as all the students are participating in the discussion, everyone is listening respectfully, and all are offering insightful and clearly articulated opinions. But when I ask, “How many times in elementary and secondary school have you been involved in a classroom discussion like the one you just described?”, sadly, most students can count the number of times on one hand. Why? If leading a classroom discussion is an activity most preservice teachers are looking forward to doing, why do quality classroom discussions happen so infrequently? “I guess,” one student said, “it must be the questions asked.” Researchers have noted that one of the key skills critical to proficient teaching is verbal questioning (Carlson 1991; Danielson 1993; Hunkins 1972; Ralph 1999; Smith, Blakeslee, and Anderson 1993). With teachers asking about 300 to 400 questions per day (Levin and Long 1981) and, depending on the type of lesson, as many as 120 questions per hour (Carlson 1991; Carlson 1997; Graesser and Person 1994), it is essential that they be skilled in using verbal questioning. Unfortunately, researchers studying teachers’ use of verbal questioning report that that skill is typically less effective than it could be (Anderson and Burns 1989; Dantonio 1990; Graesser and Person 1994). A common problem with many teachers’ use of verbal questioning is a lack of knowledge about questioning taxonomies and sequencing (Barnes 1979; Good and Brophy 2000; Lucking 1978; Pollack 1988; Rice 1977; Wilen 2001). In this article, I compare different question taxonomies and then review relevant research on question sequencing and patterns. I include an activity based on the use of political cartoons designed to improve verbal questioning.