But too often, when we assign texts to students, we find that they don't experience them with much depth. Some might say that the learning cycle of (1) consuming a section of text, (2) answering questions about the text, and (3) taking a test after several sections are completed, may not be the best way to set students up for a deep learning experience.
In order to remedy this issue, a high school English teacher has developed a new teaching method that she refers to as the TQE method. For those of you familiar with the Socratic Method, you'll see some similarities. Here is how it works, step by step:
1. Students Complete Assigned Reading At Home
- Usually this will be a longer segment of text, like a few chapters in a novel. Students who arrive unprepared are invited to finish reading in a separate corner of the classroom.
2. Small Group Discussions
- For about 15 minutes students get into small groups where they have time to share their thoughts, lingering questions, and epiphanies (TQEs) that they have about the reading. Early on in the year you can provide stems to help students generate these, but after time they should get used to the process. Some examples of these stems could include:
- What did you like? Dislike? --> Why would the author ___?
- What imagery interested you? Why? --> Why does the author keep mentioning the element of ___?
- What notes did you take from the chapter? --> What is your favorite quote or life lesson from the reading?
3. TQEs On The Board
- At the end of 15 minutes each group should choose their top two TQEs and write them on the board (or share them aloud for the teacher to write). These can then be used to serve as the basis for the group discussion.
4. Class Discussion Of TQEs
- The teacher then moderates a whole-group discussion using the TQEs that have been added to the board.
The teacher in this scenario assesses students by the number of times that they participate in the discussion (both small group and whole group).
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