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Probing Questions To Help Students Think Critically About Reading (May Be Used As Tasks) Questions Which Probe Basic Understanding and Preparation

The document lists probing questions to help students think critically about reading. The questions are grouped into four categories: 1) questions that probe basic understanding and preparation, 2) questions that probe a deeper understanding, 3) questions that probe analytical and critical thinking, and 4) questions that probe syntopical thinking. The questions get progressively more complex, starting with basic comprehension questions and building to questions that encourage students to make connections between ideas, evaluate evidence, and compare the reading to other works.

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130 views

Probing Questions To Help Students Think Critically About Reading (May Be Used As Tasks) Questions Which Probe Basic Understanding and Preparation

The document lists probing questions to help students think critically about reading. The questions are grouped into four categories: 1) questions that probe basic understanding and preparation, 2) questions that probe a deeper understanding, 3) questions that probe analytical and critical thinking, and 4) questions that probe syntopical thinking. The questions get progressively more complex, starting with basic comprehension questions and building to questions that encourage students to make connections between ideas, evaluate evidence, and compare the reading to other works.

Uploaded by

hafidhrahadiyan2
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Probing Questions to Help Students Think Critically about Reading

(may be used as tasks)

Questions which Probe Basic Understanding and Preparation


• Did you use a reading process? Describe your reading process.
• How did you pre-read the material? Explain.
• Have you determined the subject of this reading?
• What is the central idea or claim the author is trying to make?
• Are you able to identify the topic sentences and major support? Show me.
• Can you locate the minor details? Are they relevant?
• Have you outlined, mapped or taken notes on the reading?

Questions which Probe a Deeper Understanding


• Have you read this more than once? Have you annotated and marked your text?
• Why would it be a good idea to read more than once? To annotate? To mark your text?
• What is the author’s purpose for writing this? Why?
• Who speaks in the essay? To whom does the author speak (audience)? What is the author’s background?
• Select your favorite passage. Why did you select it? What does it mean and how does it relate to the
author’s thesis or central idea?
• Can you paraphrase the passage(s)? Put it in your own words. Cite it properly.
• Does the author directly state what his argument is, or is there an implied argument that remains
unstated? Write down the argument.
• In your own words, how would you summarize the author’s implied ideas and major points? Are there
confusing parts? Show me.
• Describe the diction, sentence and paragraph structure in this reading. Point out the transitional phrases.
• Does the organization and structure make sense to you? Why?
• How have you tried to define unknown words? Have you examined the context in which the vocabulary
word appears? Structure? Define unfamiliar words (includes denotative and connotative meanings)
• How do you remember concepts?
• What does the content mean to you?
• Where are you confused? Read it again and we will discuss it.
• Have you jotted down questions about what you don’t understand?

Question which Probe Analytical and Critical Thinking


• Discuss your annotations, markings and questions. Describe why you selected what you did.
• Where have you responded to the content?
• Let’s examine specific ideas or parts of text.
o How does this passage anticipate what is to come?
o How does this passage relate to what came before?
o What do these passages reveal?
o How does it reveal character, human nature, morality bias, etc?
o How would you describe its tone? Why? Provide specific examples.
• Investigate the wording and references made to other parts of same text
• Explain the author’s redundancies, assumptions, contradictions, inconsistencies, accentuations, nuances…
• How have you distinguished between fact and opinion?
• How have you deciphered relevant from irrelevant information?
• Recognize rhetorical modes and their purpose(organizational patterns)
• Is there a contextual significance (authorial, philosophical, subjective, historical, sociological, political,
economic…)? Where? How do you know? Discuss and provide examples.
• Have you questioned the author’s omissions and fallacies? With what do you disagree? Why?
• Is all of the information relevant or significant? Why or why not?
• Can you look at this idea another way? Another solution? Discuss many ways of thinking about a
particular idea.
• Have you contemplated values, experiences and attitudes of the author. What are they? How do you
know? How do they affect the work?
• Explain your own attitudes, biases and interests towards the subject matter.
• Create questions which debate meaning and contest author’s ideas.
• How does this paragraph(s), passage, part relate to the whole?
• What are the broader implications? How does the author conclude? Why?
• How can you connect text to self and text to world?
• What relationships to you see among subjects? Themes?
• How and why do these things happen and what is left unanswered?
• Can you show how ideas are related? Synthesize information.
• Discuss actions to take, challenges, implications, changes.
• What predictions can readers make?
• Compare to other readings by same author or by different authors.
• Are there issues you would like to explore in greater detail
• Is the evidence valid? Why or why not?
• Discuss ways to evaluate sources of information
• Explore logic, rationale, emotion, morality, ethics, authority, larger social, economic, political or other
circumstances of influence
• Are the author’s ideas valuable? In what way?

Questions to Probe Syntopical Thinking (concept introduced by Mortimer Alder)


• Does the author’s argument remind you of another work? How and why?
• Compare similar works.
• Have you observed data from various sources? What did you discover?
• How have you evaluated texts and evidence?
• Are your sources credible?

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