LITERACY AND INQUIRY

As we inquire, the information we encounter is in the form of some kind of text. This might be an image, a podcast, a website, a book, a diagram, an art work, a piece of music, a spoken story  - anything that communicates ideas that contribute to our exploration of our questions. Inquiry-based teachers not only help children learn to access a range of texts as they explore but teach them HOW to critique and meaning-make as readers, listeners and viewers.  Similarly, journeys of inquiry inevitably mean that children are composing and producing texts to share their thinking. Inquiring into HOW to produce those texts in effective ways for real purposes and audiences can become a wonderful ‘layer’ in the integrative inquiry experience.