Inquiry-based learning has a place in every classroom, and it will certainly be part of my English class. Some of my best memories from high school English are simply of me and my classmates sitting in a circle in our desks, a poem in front of us, answering questions like, "do you like this poem?" "what's this poem about?" and, "why is it important?" So many times before, I had taken as gospel what my teachers said was important about a certain text. Of course, we were asked to discuss the text but usually we were asked specific questions that had only one or two correct answers. We were expected to discern, for example, that "Lord of the Flies" is about primal human instincts and the degradation of society. Well sure; that certainly has a lot to do with it, but what makes learning extra effective, fun and meaningful is allowing kids to make those conclusions themselves, rather than telling them first. My favorite quote from an article on constructivist or inquiry-based learning is:
...Schools must change from a focus on "what we know" to an emphasis on "how we come to know."
Students in my English class will not be told why Shakespeare's language is effective. They will be provided the opportunity to ask why, and then given guidance on how to figure it out through research, discussions, writing and reading activities. Of course, teachers cannot create lessons that are 100% inquiry-based. That would be too frustrating for students. However, my goal as an English teacher is to create learners who constantly ask why and how, rather than create learners who recite what.
One of the most important reasons for this is in today's world, students are constantly bombarded with information from multiple sources. How do they know which news article to trust, which politician to vote for, which charity to donate to? These seem like basic tasks, but not for a student who never learned how to ask his or her own questions and find reliable answers. That's what I want my kids to learn, above all.
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