Kristin Fontichiaro | Into the Curriculum | Nudging Toward Inquiry
Summaries of selected monthly columns (Sept 2009 to present) which appear in School Library Monthly
have been prepared by Moira Ekdahl for BCTLA Conference 2015 workshop “Inquiry & the New
Curriculum.” Source: EBSCO Academic Search Premier. Note that, for the purposes of this workshop,
references to CCSS (Common Core State Standards) have been changed to “new curricula” throughout.
Critical strategies for
navigating data and the world
of information
March & April
2015
Data Literacy: Correlation vs Causation. Create
mini-lessons that prepare students to use data
critically.
Recommendation: Create mini-lessons that about
clickbait, hyperbolic headlines in print and digital
media; identify vocabulary like cause, effect,
proves, affects, impacts; teach students to find the
original research, to read and interpret it, including
Methods, Findings, Limitations of the Study, and to
compare it to an article in a popular magazine; ask,
does the author imply correlation or causation?
Dancing with Data: data literacy has “overlapping
skillsets of statistical literacy …, information
literacy …, and the ability to obtain and manipulate
information; infographics, charts, and graphs are
visualizations of data that students need to learn
to critically examine; data is not neutral
Recommendation: Talk back to data (“Scholarship
is a conversation”). Use sticky notes, highlighting,
etc. Of data, teach students to ask, What data was
used? What is missing? How else might we
account for these findings? Find and discuss ads
that use statistics AND conditional language.
Building a Culture of Inquiry
(Participatory Culture)
Feb & March,
2015
What’s Inquiry? Well, I know it when I see it: how
do we work with colleagues to identify inquiry as
opposed to fact retrieval exercises? How can we
integrate the concepts of inquiry with what we
already know and do? Criteria for inquiry: Does
the project have authentic student questions? Are
open-ended conclusions possible? Are students
regurgitating or engaging in critical thinking and
comprehension? Does the project expect
synthesis?
Recommendation: Find the places where you can
insert yourself into the research project to begin to
re-shape them rather than overhaul them
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Building Inquiry Understanding with Classroom
Colleagues: Helping colleagues move away from
Cut-and-paste activities to inquiry
Recommendation: After introducing inquiry,
create Inquiry Charts, Inquiry looks like this … but
not like this. Discuss and synthesize into a
definition. Consider re-design of lesson plans (find
these “outside” the school) to encourage inquiry.
Ask what is being assessed and issues of what is
weighted and how. Build teacher capacity one
small step at a time with a few short Pro D
activities
March 2014
Makerspaces: Inquiry and CCSS (new curricula):
Places for collective exploration of creative and
tinkering processes (sewing, circuitry,
programming, photo editing, comics creation,
game design, etc), for authentic inquiry. Lowstress collaboration, focus on process over
product, and low-hierarchy style are characteristics
of “maker” activities, as well as transformation,
sharing of skills and techniques. Questions arise
naturally; students can seek and find answers fro
mentors or online sources; there are real-world
connections; the activities are driven by student
curiosity
Recommendations: Be prepared. Writing is
making. Talk about copyright and intellectual
property. Encourage online reading. Plan ahead
and plan carefully.
May-June
2013
Librarians as Professional Developers: Being
expert in connecting new curricula to technology
integration, research, and the right resources has
never been more relevant. Shifting the role of TL
to include in-house professional developers is a
way to share expertise and embed expertise in
classrooms, not just the library. Reach kids by
empowering your colleagues., reduce stress, and
boost student engagement.
Teachers can access credible and reliable
information from their classrooms. Teach the
people to fish. Strengthen teachers’ connections
with great information and resources. Many
different ways to do this.
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Creating Time for Inquiry
Sept-Oct, 2014
Finding Time for Inquiry: Many things interrupt
learning time in schools; quality time for library
projects competes for attention. Short-term and
long-term strategies are needed to lobby for the
time and depth kids need to do this important
work.
Short-term strategies: Re-think collaboration;
create a makerspace to stimulate inquiry, etc.
Long-term strategies: Seek the places where
decisions are made and insert the library; build
bridges with administrators; keep the focus on the
students, not the library; align your program with
school goals and mission statement; make strong
curriculum connections.
Recommendation: Change is hard. Do what can
be done best to deepen students’ learning but
remember these are tough times. Save martyrdom
for the Dewey 200s!
Adding Multimedia Products
February 2014
I Can’t Do Inquiry! I’m on a Fixed Schedule!
Flexible schedules are increasingly curtailed. What
are some other possibilities to tackle the
constraints? Bring inquiry into storytime: model
active reading and questioning, keeping track of
questions on chart paper and direct students to
where they can find the answers; break research
up into stages, varying the topics to keep them
engaged; use targeted mini-lessons to focus on
more difficult aspects of research, like synthesis;
etc.
November
2014
Multimedia Work and Artist Statements: Provide
opportunities for students to think beyond the
rubric and to think conceptually about technology
to leverage deeper connection and
comprehension. Can we measure how well the
tech integration “marries cutting-edge tools to
rigorous thinking”? Do we provide ways that
students can articulate their influences, processes,
synthesis, decision-making, symbols, and choices?
Recommendation: Have students write artist
statements that provide viewers with the
backstory of the work: what inspired, provoked, or
challenged the artist? Use CLOZE strategy for exit
ticket: The visuals I chose are mean to represent –
Use a summative artist statement in narrative
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form. Address process, process, inspirations, and
your reflections on your thinking
Practical Strategies for Amping
Up Instructional Practice
January 2014
What Do You Want Your Students to Learn? (1) TL
asks teacher what students should learn. Convert
the answer into inquiry. “You don’t need an
inquiry project to learn facts that will basically be
inert knowledge” (Abilock). (2) Model what would
happen if the project is dehydrating source into
facts and rehydrating it as an essay. (3). Leapfrog
beyond the existing project: reset the finish line by
skipping product and moving to discussion and
sharing. What new ideas follow? (4) Stockpile
ideas. Get great ideas from reading, observing,
etc. Build a file of these. (Harada)
December
2013
When Research is Part of the Test: New
curriculum inserts inquiry to replace bulleted
learning outcomes precisely so that students can
delve more deeply; inquiry and inquiry skills
(competencies) are specifically addressed within
curricula. Identify these. Express concern when
these are not being addressed. Offer Pro D. Reach
out directly, esp where teachers may not have
expertise for digital research. Teach note-taking,
creating source lists, paraphrasing, evaluating
credibility, developing good research questions,
using advance search strategies, etc. Share these
in newsletter, at PAC meetings, and at Parentteacher nights. Tweet.
March 2012
Recognizing Good Information: Beyond
Wikipedia: Copying from Wikipedia isn’t very highlevel thinking. The articles are never primary
sources and are often poor secondary sources as
they are anonymous and problematic for authority.
Create Wikipedia entries and post it online. Find
fake articles. Show teachers how to deepen
student learning through research skill
development.
May-June
2011
Let It Rest: Reflecting on Instructional Practice:
Fontichiaro reflects on the first two years of her
“Nudging” column. She notes: To delineate any
recursive process – esp inquiry – into discrete steps
is a perilous act. The hazard is that a process can
accidentally indicate lock-step sequencing that
would oversimplify the real ways in which real
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researchers work …. Inquiry learning is rarely so
clear-cut (as the division of topics might suggest).
The article “re-thinks” the traditional stance on
Wikipedia, expands the use of technology, assesses
the changed nature of assessment, queries the
distinctions amongst information literacy and
reading comprehension, and offers
encouragement to TLs to carry on the good work.
Finding the Right Resources
November
2013
Complexities of Text Complexity: Text complexity
is defined by (1) a quantitative analysis of difficulty,
(2) a qualitative analysis of language, including
level of specificity and complexity, and (3) a sense
of the reader and the task. TLs are experts at
finding the “right” resources and identifying
curriculum needs. New curricula do not come
attached to resource lists. Educators are expected
to use professional judgement to match texts to
tasks or the needs of classes. Combine curriculum
development expertise, text complexity, and
curriculum themes. Reintroduce colleagues to
databases.
Recommendation: Schools need materials across a
range of levels, aligned with curriculum, etc. Read
reviews and make lists and recommendations of
high-quality resources for students.
March 2013
Text Complexity: Student inquirers need to
understand both explicit and implicit meaning in
texts as well as the use and function of various
textual elements, such as main ideas or structure
of text. They need a variety of complexities.
Discussion of text complexity and tools to scaffold
the learning is an opportunity to engage colleagues
and administrators in what makes a “just right”
resource; it is not simply measured. Strategies to
grapple with comprehension and text complexity
include: frontloading new content and
constructing thoughtful pre-reading activities;
teaching paraphrasing; providing more accessible
texts; emphasize decoding in K-1 contexts;
preparing students with vocabulary, etc.
Sept-Oct 2012
Informational Text: With the increased focus on
reading and writing informational text, finding,
purchasing, sharing, and teaching with diverse
print and online non-fiction is a strong part of a
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TL’s toolkit. This article offers strategies for
leveraging this expertise to support student
learning.
Transforming Traditional
Research into Inquiry
Sept-Oct, 2013
Move Beyond Traditional Research: Teaching
Dewey and other skills for finding physical
materials is not so important any more. Move on!
While reading is a priority across the curriculum
and for TLs, the new curriculum does not exempt
anyone from teaching inquiry and/or research
skills; the TL has received more training and Pro D
than others on this. Reading is more than reading
fiction. Research is real-world reading, “a chance
to read, probe, summarize, make connections, and
imagine possibilities.” To achieve goals of both
reading and inquiry, reframe inquiry as a way to
harness students’ curiosity and to inspire and
encourage students to read more.
Readiness for the world beyond school includes
being able to gather, comprehend, evaluate,
synthesize, and report on information and ideas;
conduct original research to answer questions and
solve problems; analyze and create a range of print
and non-print texts in various media formats. New
curricula expect that students will be able to
produce and consume media. The skills of inquiry
are thus embedded throughout. Simple
worksheets to cover the teaching of skills lead to
gathering information but do not address the
deeper goals for meaningful inquiry,
comprehension and metacognition.
November
2011
How Do We Match Learning Objectives and
Projects? Re-design research questions to prevent
the likelihood of plagiarism and make the research
more relevant to the researcher. It is important to
get and keep kids on track. Their questions should
not be answerable in one source. Use a VENN
diagram to plan the project with Content and
Competencies defining the circles.
March 2010
Pet Research: Small tweaks can lead to big
changes. Instead of the traditional report, create a
scenario, have students generate the questions,
explore virtual pets, write a letter or blog post,
make a move about pet care, etc.
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January 2010
Re-Envisioning Plant Research: An urban class is
going to a community garden; the focus is on
growing vegetables and on preparing to have a
vegetable garden at the school. Practitioners offer
tips: Have students undertake virtual community
garden tours first. Make connections to science
and plant life cycles. Work in teams to create
imaginary gardens. Research before the trip.
December
2009
Re-Envisioning the Animal Report: A primary
teacher is bringing his class and his graphic
organizer to do animal research. The class will
present slides with one fact and one picture per
slide. Practitioners advise: Add questions Where,
When, How, Why. Extend their thinking: How do
the gathered facts relate to the animal’s survival?
Incorporate a real-world scenario: create a zoo or
put Webkinz into the wild. Compare to a special
friend’s diet or habitat. And so on.
November
2009
Re-Envisioning the Country Report: Each student
will gather facts about a country, such as
population, capital city, major exports, etc., and
create a poster. Practitioners advise: Reframe the
question using From Now On (fno.org) website.
Ask different questions: What is one problem your
country faces and if you were its leader, what
would you do about it? Create a scenario: I am
planning a trip … or We have a new student from
…. Have students write a script in the voice of a
tour guide, etc.
September
2009
Re-Envisioning Existing Research Projects: The
use of the work “inquiry” in the new curriculum
signals a deeper and more all encompassing
instructional partnership between teachers and
TLs. To date, however, low-level projects
perseverate for a number of reasons: knowing
about inquiry is not the same as doing it.
Loertscher at al call these “bird units”; Jamie
McKenzie calls them “word-moving” activities.
And so students learn to copy, not to learn. If a
major overhaul of the project is not an option,
consider gradual changes over time. School
librarians can be change agents promoting inquiry.
Fontichiaro adapts the Stripling Inquiry model with
“tweaking” strategies to nudge a project into
inquiry. (p.19)
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Integrating Particular
Research Skills
Developmentally
April 2013
Supporting Arguments with Evidence: Begins with
stories; the word “because” is important. Teachers
need to move students beyond tool fluency in
multimedia contexts to constructing new
knowledge using awareness of content and
structure; return to classic writing forms and
organizational structures like graphic organizers.
February 2013
Research Strategies for Grades 9-12: Key
strategies include the abilities to: provide evidence
to support arguments; generate questions and
adjust the scope of inquiry as needed; synthesize;
use multiple information sources; assess the
purpose, quality, credibility, and usefulness of a
source; avoid plagiarism, giving credit to others’
work in a recognizable format; analyze primary and
secondary sources.
January 2013
Research Strategies for Grades 6-8: Key processes
include redirecting inquiry when an original line of
thinking does not pan out; developing original
questions by leveraging prior and new knowledge;
assessing accuracy and credibility; paraphrasing
December
2012
Research Strategies for Grades 3-5: These
students have learned to decode and navigate
print text; they can find answers in photos and
texts and in search engines. To address the
competencies outlined in the new curriculum, they
will need to infuse their emergent digital learning
practice with deeper skills, like using ageappropriate databases, short print and online
informational texts for background knowledge
(including Wikipedia and simple.wikipedia.org, an
ESL companion source), and fiction reading that
engages them with basic ideas and concepts. In
addition, they need to learn more search tips,
note-taking and summarizing, and the habit of
questioning
November
2012
Research Strategies K-2: Ramp up informational
text-centred storytimes. Use KWL strategy. Create
questioning bulletin boards. Leapfrog from fiction
to research. Stick notes provide a kinesthetic
precursor to outlining. Use the read-aloud
features of databases and incorporate/create
audio recordings; send research challenges home
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