With so much information at the fingertips of our students, we, as educators, need to find a way to help them navigate through it. Too many students will take the information they find at face value, without looking at the source in which they are discovering these “facts”. The Points of Inquiry put forward by the British Columbia Teacher-Librarian’s Association, like many other inquiry models, focuses on teaching the students how to research for reliable sources in the quest to find their appropriate answer while answering three important questions: what does it mean to be information literate in today’s world; what are the implications for teaching and learning; what is an effective framework to guide BC educators?

This article’s focus is to express the “importance of learners being able to think critically about information, about sources of information, and about constructing and answering their own questions” (BCTLA, 2011, p. 15). It gives instructions to do this by covering the 5 points of the inquiry model, splitting each point (connect & wonder, investigate, construct, express, and reflect) into tables for K-3, 4-7 and 8-12, and cover what students should be able to do by those grades in inquiry-based reading and inquiry-based learning. It wraps up by showing readers what the inquiry would look like for Grade 2, 6, and 11s. This is a good resource to better understand the purpose and motivations behind inquiry models.

The Points of Inquiry: A Framework for Information Literacy and the 21st Century Learner. British Columbia Teacher-Librarians’ Association, 2011. Retrieved from http://bctf.ca/bctla/pub/documents/Points%20of%20Inquiry/PointsofInquiry.pdf