Asking questions is one of the most essential functions of teaching. In this book, the authors Nancy Lee Cecil and Jeanne Pfeifer show teachers how to develop both their own questioning skills and those of their students. The authors explain how to model provocative, open-ended questions, and provides many useful teacher- and student-directed questioning strategies. From these strategies, children learn how to ask questions that enable them to construct their own meaning from what they read and experience. This revised edition includes several new questioning strategies. In addition, many of the strategies found in the original edition have been updated and/or expanded to reflect today's best practices in educaiton. The Art of Inquiry is divided into two sections. Part I identifies the many types of questions and the thinking skills they promote (such as knowledge, comprehesion, analysis, and evaluation), and discusses how to foster the free flow of questions and anwers. Part II provides practical questioning strategies and activities (for example, Polar Opposite, Think Aloud, and Self-Instruction) that stimulate the highest critical and creative thinking skills. The authors also show how asking the right questions can help children to understand content, learn to ask effective questions of themselves, and make clear connections between diverse thoughts.

Nancy Lee Cecil, PhD, is a professor of education at California State University at Sacramento. She has a rich background, having taught in public schools in upstate New York, the inner city of Savannah, Georgia, and in the U.S. Virgin Islands. As a local, national, and international speaker, she offers workshops that focus on the literacy needs of the increasing number of diverse learners in North American schools. Dr. Cecil has written many professional articles about current concerns in literacy education. She is also the author of over a dozen books.

Nancy Lee Cecil's profile page

Jeanne Pfeifer, PhD, is a professor of education at California State University at Sacramento. She teaches critical-thinking and teaching-strategies courses for teachers in graduate programs, as well as critical-thinking courses for undergraduate students. She has taught to diverse populations in southern California public schools, and has been c consultant in New York, South Carolina, Ohio, and California. She organized and led a five-year study group with teachers at the elementary level, focusing on critical thinking, inquiry, and teachers’ questions.

Jeanne Pfeifer's profile page