Chapter 5
Before reading Chapter 5, I already had some grounds on the potential that rich classroom talk has to engage students into critical thinking. Nonetheless, I had never thought about how crucial asking the proper questions is in order to truly make students reflect upon the matters at stake. To that extent, I also realized that there is a rather fine line between making the right question and making a question that only requests superficial answers which are mostly elaborated to get the teacher’s approval. In light of this, on the one hand, it makes me a bit apprehensive to know that this line can be crossed over if a single word is misplaced in our interrogative sentence. On the other hand, it is very motivating to understand the power that questions may have, if correctly used. The suggestions that the author gives us, such as avoiding IRFs, asking fewer questions, and planning the questions in advance are useful strategies which set a good starting point. Yet they certainly do not guarantee that we always stay on the right path, as situations in the classroom often unfold in unexpected directions. Hence, asking the right questions is actually an art, which requires improvising, planning, practicing, background knowledge, and so forth; it is something to be developed, but never achieved, through failure and success along an entire teaching career.