Kuunari

The series “Reading Notice and Note” features essays I wrote for a distance learning class while reading the book Notice & Note: Strategies for Close Reading by G. Kylene Beers and Robert E Probst. Overall, I found the book and the class enjoyable and hope this series helps others as they read and think about the book. 

The Tough Question signpost is deceptively difficult for students to master. First, it is easy to mistake any question for a tough question, and even identifying the question might not lead to the reader pausing and thinking about the text.

However, within almost any young adult or juvenile fiction book there are examples of Tough Questions because they are such an effective way to convey the worries and thoughts of characters to the reader. Helping students identify and analyze these tough questions helps students understand the problems the characters face and the themes of the text. 

After the concept of Tough Questions is introduced to students, the first strategy to help students understand Tough Questions is the focus question, “what does this question make me wonder about?” Many students, particularly fourth graders like the students I teach, will start identifying all questions in a text as a Tough Question. To help students determine which questions are actually “tough,” the teacher can model analyzing a question by using the focus question.

If the question doesn’t actually make us wonder about anything deep or meaningful about the text, then the question is not a tough question. If during a close reading we do start wondering more about a tough question the text poses, we will begin to understand the internal conflict the character is going through and the themes that the author wants to convey to us, the readers. 

Even with the focus question, many readers will still simply wait for the book to answer the question, rather than pause and ponder about the question. These tough questions usually signal a change that will be happening in the book, and readers often want to move ahead to the resolutions of the conflict posed by the question. The authors of Notice and Note provide some additional questions that can help draw out the thinking of the students during a close reading that identifies a tough question.

The additional questions include an excellent pair question to help the students connect with the characters. “How would I, the reader, feel or think in these circumstances? Does the character seem to feel the same or different?” (149) To help the students start to understand the beliefs, values, and perspective of a character as revealed by the tough question, a teacher could ask, “what values will help the character make his or her choice?” This question forces the student to remember back through the entire text about what has been revealed about the character and apply it to the dilemma currently facing the character. This line of questioning for the student helps them realize that well-written characters are three-dimensional with their own wants and desires and by understanding them, the reader can get more out of the text. 

As my class read Among the Hidden, we would often stop to talk about the Tough Questions posed by Luke and Jen and what those questions revealed about each character. By the end of the book, the students realized that the tough questions that Luke asked himself would foreshadow the actions he would take while highlighting the struggle and dilemmas he face.

As we discussed the book, we realized how damaging being a hidden, illegal child was for Luke as even seemingly simple choices like leaving the house became monumental, life-changing acts. Thinking toward the next time I read Among the Hidden with my students, I will use the additional guiding questions suggested by the authors of Notice and Note to help my students come to that realization themselves, rather than explicitly pointing it out to my students.