Star Wars Inquiry Circles

My colleague, Brian and I use Star Wars to teach our 5th graders about the hero's journey, a common literary narrative. I've wrote about it before, here. This fall as we began our unit it was even more exciting because we knew the new film, The Last Jedi, would be released in December. As we explored the hero's journey with Rey, our new protagonist from The Force Awakens, students began speculating about the upcoming new movie. This is where inquiry circles come in.

If you aren't familiar with inquiry circles I've wrote about them here and here back when I was teaching third grade.  During inquiry circles students choose a question to study or research. They work collaboratively to answer the question. For our Star Wars Inquiry students selected a "burning question" they had about a Star Wars character. A question that couldn't be answered for sure, yet. As a class we brainstormed a list of questions we wondered about. Questions that we hoped would be answered in the next movie, The Last Jedi. For example, Who is Rey? Why was she left on Jakku? What would happen to her next? If you are a big Star Wars fan, you are familiar with these questions and probably have your own theories! Inquiry groups were formed based on students questions. We had a group wondering about Supreme Leader Snoke and Kylo Ren. I formed 2 groups each for Luke Skywalker and Rey because so many students were interested in these characters.

In the next part of the inquiry circles I did some lessons on collaboration, note-taking and listening. Then they set off to research everything they could find out about their character and evidence that might help them form a theory about their "burning question". Students used Wookiepedia, clips from movies and the trailers for the Last Jedi. We even had some Star Wars books they could use. After collected information was verified as 'canon', I showed students how to web out information so that they could begin looking for patterns that would help them form a theory. Once they had their theory, they needed to be able to back it up with evidence either from the movies, trailers or Wookiepedia.

Each day as students worked together, I moved between groups to help them navigate Wookiepedia, read and understand passages, suggest further reading and generally talk to them and push their thinking. Of course another big part of inquiry circles is learning to work collaboratively. Some groups had few problems and moved along, while others needed some help problem solving. All of these things are messy, but I view them as good learning experiences. Sometimes I would have a struggling group watch a more productive group to help them see how to make it work. One group struggled to come up with a theory on Rey. So they needed me to help them go over their evidence and help them think aloud. They struggled throughout with listening to one another. So, they needed frequent interventions and reminders from me. But eventually they were successful. I ended up combining the Luke groups because of absences and lack of participation by 1 student. This made the group too large and they struggled when it came time to plan the podcast. At one point a student rewrote the whole script at home. We had to have a discussion about how unfair this was because the rest of the group didn't have a say in the matter. The work was suppose to be collaborative. This particular student wasn't comfortable with the messiness of working collaboratively. He couldn't see the value of listening to others' ideas or understanding that some students needed things repeated or explained more than once. And that sometimes people don't pay attention. But with lots of teacher guidance and reminders this group turned out a great podcast that was so much better than the script wrote at home because it had input from everyone.  I'm still not sure if I did the right thing by combining them.

I decided to have my students present their theories on several episodes of our podcast, Radio Rosenquist. Actually, I didn't have a class podcast...yet. I'd been thinking about starting one and this project just pushed me to jump in and start one. Sometimes that is the best way to begin. So in less than 3 weeks my students completed the inquiry circles, wrote podcast scripts, practiced and record their podcasts.  I will write another post about podcasting at a later date.

Last night my husband and I went with friends to see The Last Jedi. I loved it! No surprise there. This morning we brought our 5th graders to see it. They loved it too. Our local movie theater opened the theater at 9am just for us.  It was both exciting and emotional to sit in a theater with well over one hundred 5th graders and experience this movie with them.  There is no way this post can show how valuable this Star Wars unit is to my 5th graders. Of course Star Wars captures their attention, but I am always amazed at the critical thinking my students engage in, and the connections they make to other literature and everyday life.

You can listen to our podcasts here or here.

Using Inquiry Circles to Teach Content Area

Back in December I wrote about how I have been experimenting with inquiry circles.  You can read that post here.  I have continued implementing ideas I learned while reading the book, Comprehension & Collaboration: Inquiry Circles for Curiosity, Engagement and Understanding by Stephanie Harvey and Smokey Daniels.  During the winter I began an inquiry unit on slavery and the Underground Railroad.

First, I would like to say that this topic is not part of our official third grade social studies units.  So, why did I choose this topic? Over the years that I've taught elementary school I have noticed a lot of confusion surrounding African American history.  I've had numerous students after reading about Martin Luther King Jr, ask if he "freed the slaves". While reading various picture books that either focus on an African American or a topic in African American history I have many students ask questions during the reading that often surprise me.  One such question is, "What is a slave?" And while I always answer these questions I have been surprised at how many of my students are either confused about or don't know just a little bit about our African American history.  Their knowledge at best is very superficial.  And when I do answer questions I often feel like I am just skimming the surface and there is so much more I would like them to know! Every time I share books or talk about Martin Luther King, Jr and the civil rights movement I have felt like there was a big piece missing.  So that question that so many of my students had: "What is a slave?" or "What is slavery?" turned into an inquiry circle.  It wasn't long until that question morphed into "Why was there slavery?".

I began by reading several picture books to introduce the topic of slavery in America. One of my favorites was Now Let Me Fly: The Story of a Slave Family by Dolores Johnson.  It is a fictional story about a young girl kidnapped from Africa and sold into slavery. It is not a pleasant story and doesn't have a happy ending, but my students were riveted, shocked and had so many questions afterward. This is exactly what I wanted - they had bought in and wanted and needed to know more.

I decided to use the Underground Railroad Scholastic website for our internet research.  It it well put together, in chronological order and used a lot of primary documents as well.  In addition, it gives students the ability to listen to the text as well.  This was important since there was so much new vocabulary and the text could be challenging at times.  Students would work in partnerships to read, discuss and take notes on each section of the website.  Each partnership used one computer.  This kept them focused on collaborating. This portion of the research took a LONG time due to limited access to computers and the fact that they are 8 and 9 years old!  There were many lessons on collaboration - how to listen and have a conversation. There were lessons on how to read and understand the text - how to reread, how to notice when you are confused, noticing important vocabulary, asking further questions.  There were note-taking lessons - using 3 column charts to note our new learning, questions and important vocabulary, learning to reread our notes often.  Periodically, we had whole class discussions about our learning and questions.  An important idea that we explored was noting our misconceptions.  As students began to read about the Underground Railroad I knew it would be difficult for them to understand that it was not a real railroad.  There were several days of discussion before most of the class began to realize it was a symbol or metaphor for escape. (They did not use those terms!)

When we weren't in the computer lab or using the chromebooks with our school librarian, we were reading the book, If You Lived When There Was Slavery in America by Anne Kamma.  This is a great non-fiction books for third graders because each chapter or section has a question as the title.  Students were divided into cooperative groups.  I gave each group a different set of chapters from the book to read together and take notes on.  Later each group taught the rest of our class their sections of the book.

As our research started to come to a close I began thinking of ways my students could share what they learned.  I decided to have them write slave narratives.  Each student would tell their story as an escaped slave, writing in first person.  In addition, I decided to have them do this in a Google document.  This would be the first time they would type a long piece of writing in Documents. Prior to this they had only used Google Presentation and Draw, but this had provided the practice they needed to get familiar with the keyboard.  They clicked away with one or two fingers fairly quickly! A link to their slave narratives is available on our class blog.  Just scroll to the bottom of the page.

During the time I was planning this inquiry unit a discussion began on twitter and other social media regarding the depiction of slaves in the book, A Fine Dessert by Emily Jenkins and Sophie Blackall.  I read all the tweets, blogs and comments surrounding the book and hope I have learned a lot and am a better teacher because of these discussions.  But I will admit that I was even more nervous about teaching this unit!  What if I did it wrong?  I am white.  Do I have enough understanding of the topic to teach it to my students?  Yikes! But then I thought back to the 8 year old Debbie, back in third grade, in 1968, living and going to school in a suburb where everyone looked like me.  That little girl went to the library and checked out a book on Harriet Tubman.  That little girl cried and cried over that book.  That little girl wondered why she hadn't learned about Harriet in school. That little girl went back to the library to learn more.  It's with that little girl, that little Debbie (pardon the pun) in mind, that I tried to create an inquiry circle that would encourage my students to learn more.  

I will close with one last story.  As students were peer editing their documents I heard this comment. "Your narrative is so good, it makes me want to cry." 

Exploring and Experimenting with Inquiry Circles

Over the years I have been interested in taking my student research in a more authentic direction.  I wanted to move away from a teacher-chosen, whole group topic to more of a student chosen topics.  While teaching second grade I did this with research clubs during reading workshop.  After finding out what my students were interested in learning about I collected books and magazines on that topic.  Students selected the group they wanted to be in and spent time reading and taking notes on that topic.  I usually had at least 5-6 themed clubs prepared.  The usual topics were outer space and various animal groups. Groups usually presented their learning on a poster.  Kathy Collins' book, Reading for Real gave me the inspiration for these clubs.

Since moving up to third grade last year I started reading about inquiry units and recently read the book, Comprehension & Collaboration: Inquiry Circles for Curiosity, Engagement, and Understanding by Stephanie Harvey and Harvey "Smokey" Daniels.  What a terrific book! The book explains why small group inquiry should be used and describes 4 different models for inquiry.  The best part is the lessons that are included, which are divided into 3 sections: comprehension, collaboration and inquiry.  The books is filled with examples from real classrooms with real teacher talk.  This book gave me the push I needed to dive into inquiry circles in my classroom.

MY FIRST INQUIRY UNIT

First, I want to say I am so excited that my school district hired full time librarians once again for our elementary schools.  After many years of budget cuts I am delighted that our school board worked to restore these wonderful library media specialist.  This unit was completed with the help of our most wonderful library media specialist, Ms. Yilidrim.

I decided to make my first inquiry unit a curricular inquiry.  I began with a broad theme, "Oceans".  As part of our science curriculum we are suppose to study plants, photosynthesis, etc.  I decided I could teach the skills and concepts using the Ocean theme.  By using a collection of read alouds, short articles and videos I taught my class important reading comprehension and note-taking skills.  Along the way I gave my students an "Inquiry or Wonder" Notebook and gave them time daily to enter questions they had about our topic of study.  I used the information in these notebooks to pull questions that I thought might work for our first "mini-inquiry".  It was my intention to get them into the research part quickly so they could begin answering their own questions.  Here's some of the questions we started with: How deep is the ocean?  Where are the underwater mountains located?  What is the temperature of the ocean?  How do fish breathe underwater?

Students chose the question they were interested in researching.  I placed students in pairs to begin the research.  They have limited experience working collaboratively and I thought partners would be a good beginning.  While students researched together everyone was responsible for their own note-taking.  When I do this again I will have larger groups to compensate for absences and learning/reading abilities.  Besides more researchers get through more research!

CAN'T WE JUST GOOGLE IT?

While we taught our students how to use trade books and reference materials to search for answers to their questions, I also decided to BEGIN teaching them how to use the internet to get answers to their questions.  I was hoping to teach them how some questions are quick to answer, while we might have to delve further to answer other more complicated questions. But that didn't happen. For my third graders these questions were hard to answer!  Here's some problems using the internet with third graders.  First, reading level.  There are some good sites to help them out, but often they are so full of technical language that they needed help to figure it all out. I think for the future I will create a list of helpful websites for students when doing research.  Second, trying to teach them that everything on the internet is not always trustworthy is an ONGOING lesson.  Hopefully by the end of the year my students will have acquired some basic knowledge on using the Internet for research.

PRESENTING WHAT WE LEARNED

I decided to put my students in larger groups after the research was complete.  Most groups had 4-5 students.  I taught them how to use Google Slide Presentation.  Students divided up the slides making sure they had an introduction slide and a slide with all the resources included.  Each group presented to the whole class.

You can see some example slide presentations here and here.

WHAT DID I LEARN?

I reminded myself the entire time that the PROCESS was more important than the product.  I learned that my students could work collaboratively but it was messy and filled with problems along the way - but very worth it.  I know that with practice, they will be better at it next time.  This was authentic because they researched questions that were important to them.  I want to make sure I give students skills and strategies that they will use for a lifetime, not just for the moment.  Finding reading materials on a third grade level is the most challenging thing for me, especially if I want students to be able to work on different questions.  Going to the library to work with on the Chromebooks was great because I had access to another teacher.  It was a joy working with our new library media specialist.  Completing this type of research would be very difficult without having another expert involved!

Here's a list of some of the skills and concepts they learned and practiced:

• working collaboratively, listening, helping and not always getting your way, being a member of a team
• listening and taking notes
• reading and taking notes
• non-fiction reading strategies
• locating information in table of contents or index, deciding if the text will help you, deciding what key words to use
• rereading over and over to understand something
• using graphics to understand what you read
• summarizing key points from text or video
• asking questions when you don't understand and helping someone when they don't understand
• why it's not nice to plagiarize
• what does .gov, .com, .org mean?
• how to locate the author of the website
• how to use key words to look something up on the internet
• getting your questions answered is hard work, you have to concentrate and persevere
• how to use Google Drive and create slides
• how to use a Chromebook

I know my list could go on and on, but I will stop there.  I wanted to make sure I documented my thinking after I was finished with this first try at inquiry circles.  I look forward to our next set of inquiry circles.

Have you used inquiry circles?  Have you taught young students how to use the Internet for research? Do you have favorite search engines or websites?