Issue 156: Oct 31, 2011 Connections Newsletter

Question Out the Door

Carol Brewer
Nov 01, 2011

How can Summarizing Strategies be used to strengthen Strategies for Questioning?

The Question Out the Door strategy is a Summarizing Strategy that makes the connection from instruction to assessments.It is similar to the Ticket Out the Door Summarizing Strategy in that it is used at the end of a lesson or as an Assessment Prompt during the lesson. Question Out the Door uses questions that are aligned to questions on state tests.For example, "According to the author, what is the essential message from this text?" This is a Main Idea question that makes a perfect Question Out the Door!It is driven by standards and uses the signal words "Essential Message" from the new Core Curriculum.This question should be followed with multiple choice answers for students to practice and strengthen their test taking strategies.

Question Out the Door can be used in different ways:

Suggestion 1: Create two questions with multiple choice answers, one is for you to model the steps in the process for answering the question and the other is for your students to practice what has been modeled.

Suggestion 2: Create questions that align to state tests and write them on index cards.Give each group or pair of students an index card with a different question.Students read the question, analyze what type of question it is and look back in the text to find the answer or to find reference to the answer.

Suggestion 3: Take a set of "task cards" that include questions that are aligned to state tests. Align the focus of the lesson to the task cards. For example, if the focus of the lesson is Main Idea and Details, use the Main Idea and Details task cards. Use the task cards during instruction to align the question.At the end of the lesson, give students the Main Idea and Details task cards and have students create Main Idea and Details questions from the task cards.Students can create these questions with their partner and give them to another pair to answer them.

Suggestion 4: The "Four Corners" activity gets students up and moving as well as using Extending Thinking strategies.After students have answered a multiple choice question, have them go to their corner labeled a, b, c, and d.Have students construct support for the best answer.

The Question Out the Door strategy will strengthen students' test taking strategies - preparing them to be more skillful test takers. Grade level teams should brainstorm additional test taking strategies during their grade level meetings as well.

Additional information for questioning can be found in the Preparing Students to be Skillful Test Takers book and flipchart as well as the Strategies for Questioning flipchart. Training is available for each of these materials.