What's after “What's That?”: Preservice Teachers Learning to Ask Literary Questions

Abstract

This year-long study analyzed the effects of using carefully assisted case studies to prepare preservice teachers to be more knowledgeable and skilled in supporting children's response to literature. As part of an undergraduate course in children's literature, 43 preservice teachers read weekly to individually selected children. The purposes of the assignment were (a) to expand the preservice teachers' understandings of response to literature by analyzing an individual child's responses over time and (b) to enhance their instructional strategies and critical stances toward literature. Over time, preservice teachers' question types shifted in amount and content, moving from teacher dominance to child-teacher dialogue. Within the dialogue, the preservice teachers learned to create or at least reflect on a balance between comfort and challenge. As the preservice teachers changed, the children changed as well, moving from hesitancy to confidence, even to the point of contradicting the preservice teachers. Additionally, the course emphasis on questioning as well as on detailed fieldnotes heightened preservice teachers' attention to the results of their own questioning strategies, causing them to be more reflective about the content and consequences of their queries.