LITERATURE QUESTIONS CHILDREN WANT TO DISCUSS - WHAT TEACHERS AND STUDENTS LEARNED IN A 2ND-GRADE CLASSROOM

Studying 18 students' questions during literature discussions became t he focus of a qualitative exploratory research project that a universi ty professor and a second-grade teacher pursued over the course of I s chool year. The research began as a study of the process of transferri ng responsibility from teacher to students in a literature discussion format designed to promote critical thinking but evolved into a study of what we and the second graders learned when student questions were the nucleus of literature discussions. The interpretative analyses of student-generated questions, discussion transcripts, student interview s, and research conversations are organized according to 2 themes: wha t we learned and what the students learned. It was evident that studen ts were eager to pose questions that addressed what they needed and wa nted to understand about literature and life. When given the opportuni ty to write, they generated numerous and varied questions. They listen ed carefully to each other and willingly discussed all questions prese nted. Students exhibited a desire to communicate about what perplexed and interested them by attending to the wording of questions. This led them to listen carefully to each other and offer suggestions for more exact statements of questions. We learned about our tendency to impos e our own ideas about what constitutes a ''good'' discussion question on students' question asking. We concluded that the study was more abo ut the process we had to undergo to accept that students provide the ' 'right'' kinds of discussion questions when they have opportunities to ask about anything they find interesting, curious, or confusing.