What is a question?

My reader's workshop mini-lesson today was about questioning. I've been reading the book "Reading With Meaning" and am attempting something I have never really done before... I'm actually trying to TEACH what questioning REALLY means. It's so much more than asking literal questions.

Suggested by Paula, I started the lesson with "What is a question?". We had a little discussion with what a question is and why we ask questions. (Look at all the questions I just asked!! :)) Then we came up with a list of question words, words that begin an asking sentence. I'm going to come back to these question words later and we are going to talk about important questions and not-so-important questions. We'll dissect these words and find out which words get us to the "deep" and "meaty" part of what we want to learn.

Anyway, with the list on poster paper, and a book Paula loaned me about the Exxon Valdez oil spill, I had each student use the question words and ask a question about the book. We have already read "Oil Spill" and now we are just about to start "After the Spill". Each student stuck their question on the board and we read each question to prepare us for the reading.

I started with the first few pages and the kids started to realize some of their questions were answer, but ALL of my kids were SO into the book. They even began to think of more questions to add to our board. This is exactly what I was looking for. Anyway, we really didn't have much time to read the book. That's ok because we are going to pick up right where we left off on Monday (tomorrow is doughnut date.. no reading).

Anyway, I am documenting how this is going so I can refer back to it later... what worked and what didn't.

What's not working: Some of my kids picking where they get to sit on the rug.
What is working: Having the front row of my class take three skooches back and the back row (those kids that are ALWAYS sitting back there) move right in front of me.