Empowering Students to Become Interactive, Lifelong Learners

Presenters: Karen J. Sheldon, Northside Independent School District, San Antonio, TX; Joe White and Dan Wall, Great Books Foundation, Chicago, IL

This session is presented in separate parts. Use the buttons at the end of the transcription to navigate between each part.

Anyway, we are delighted that you have chosen to rise early on the last day of the conference and join us for this ticketed session that, you will see in your program brochure, is titled Empowering Students to Become Interactive and Lifelong Learners.

With us today is Karen Sheldon, who is actually the primary presenter for the day. Karen is from Northside Independent School District and is the person who has organized and coordinated and continues to shepherd a very, very divergent balanced literacy program at Northside, of which Junior Great Books is one component. Also Joe White is with us. Joe is a consultant with the Great Books Foundation, who has worked very closely with Karen here at Northside.

Our design for this morning, the agenda, is actually pretty simple. After this short introduction Karen is going to give you an overview of the literacy program at Northside. Then she is going to pass the mike back to me and I will at that time give you some basic information about the Great Books Foundation, a nonprofit organization in existence for the last 55 years, headquartered in Chicago, and I will also give you some insight as to how the Junior Great Books program fits in with a balanced literacy approach to literacy education.

The one thing that we are going to do that will be the most fun is we are going to be giving you an opportunity to experience the shared inquiry method with a reading from the Junior Great Books series. You don't have to be afraid, even though it is a third grade reading. It is an outstanding reading that appeals both to the adult audience and to the students for whom it was selected. That is one of the criteria for Junior Great Books.

I will be taking you through the first day's activities with that. Then Joe will pick up and will work with you on a second day's activities and the shared inquiry discussion, which is the heart and soul of Junior Great Books. After that, the three of us will be available to answer your questions, respond to any input that you give.

I would remind you, this session is being taped for broadcast on the Internet later. So we will be fumbling with the microphones. None of us took the same courses as Vanna White. But we will try to pass the microphones to you as you participate in the morning's activities. Karen?

KAREN SHELDON: Good morning.

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Good morning.

KAREN SHELDON: Welcome to San Antonio, Texas. Hee-Ha! I hope you're having a great time visiting our city. I would like to welcome you on behalf of our district, the Northside School District. And it's a pleasure to be with you here this morning.

To give you some background about our district, I am going to share with you our top 10 list in Texas. You know in Texas, we like things big, and bigger is even greater. So you will see that our district is the sixth largest district. We have 65,717 students as of the beginning of the year, which means 48 elementaries, 16, with the specials, for middle school, and six comprehensive high schools with three magnet high schools. So we are very, very proud of the students, the teachers, the administrators, all who work together as a team to make our district a recognized district in Texas. So we are very excited about that.

My job in our district is to supervise the reading programs for grades 4 through 12. So I am involved with all levels, from elementary, to middle and high school. To give you some information about our makeup of the district, you can see we are very diverse and we have all kinds of unique students in our district. We have ESL. We have special ed. We have GT. We have all kinds of students. And the daily attendance is 95 percent, which is pretty awesome I think for a district as large as we are. We work very hard to encourage kids to come to school. It is a family-friendly place and it is a great place to work. So if you are looking for a job, come to San Antonio and Northside School District.

I want to talk to you a little bit about reading and reading strategies. You will notice in the whole teaching act, the total teaching act requires a lot of thinking and planning. Knowledge of content is only one piece of the puzzle. Would you agree? And planning skills, classroom management, selection and use of appropriate materials, human relation skills, and instructional skills, they all come together to make a teacher exceptional. And that is part of my job, to develop teachers, to provide excellent staff development for our teachers and to our philosophy of reading.

You will notice in the packet, if I could kind of walk you through that, on the fourth page of the packet you will see an overview of our district's reading program. And I would like to talk to you about that now. In Texas, we have the TEKS, which is the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. That is the curriculum from the State level. We also have academic standards in place. And we have been developing our standards for the past four years. We have standards K through 12. And I have samples of those, too. So after our session together, if you have some specific questions, I can share what they look like, too.

In middle school we have reading standards for 6th, 7th and 8th. And that is something that I would like to further share with you in our conversation today. And also in our State we have the TAAS test, the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills. Kids take this in reading from grades 3 through 8, and then also in high school. And in order to get a high school diploma in Texas, they must pass the exit test in reading and math.

You will notice that we are changing our TAAS test to a TAKS test, a more rigorous test. This is called the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, and it is aligned with our Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. Do you see the connection there?

Overall in our reading program, we address these four criteria — the standards, the TEKS, the TAAS and the TAKS. But if we only address the TAAS skills, we would be limiting our kids because the standards are much more broad than just focusing on the TAAS and the TAKS itself.

You will notice that our supplemental reading program includes the Junior Great Books, includes Sadlier-Oxford Vocabulary, includes Reading Workshop with Nancy Atwell's philosophy. Are you familiar with "In the Middle" for secondary learners? Socratic seminaring. Our Holt literature text and ancillary materials. Jamestown Publisher's Comprehension Series. Inquiry and Research Strand, which gives the kids a lot of background, with the Internet and other sources to do some generating of questions and investigations. Accelerated Reader is also used to motivate kids to practice their fluency. And we also encourage and have gifted and talented programs.

Now, for our struggling readers and those who may need extra scaffolding and extra support, through ARD committees or through just the remedial settings themselves, we have the Read 180, which is a Scholastic program, to accelerate struggling readers. We also offer ISM, small flexible grouping within the classroom, tutoring, Read Excel, which is a nonfiction component from Scholastic Textbooks, and ancillary materials. We also offer Soar to Success by Houghton-Mifflin. CMC at-risk support on some campuses. And the STEP summer program for those that need extra tutoring and extra support in the summer. It's like a modified summer school for our kids. And TAAS remediation.

We also have dyslexia programs available, which you can see here. And also special education programs. But this gives you an overall view of how things come together for our district.
Now, if you take a look at the packet, I want to talk a little bit about reading and what is involved when you read and what makes kids empowered when they read. You will notice that we have some ambiguous paragraphs. These have been around forever. And what I would like to do is read you the first one here, and then I would like to have you talk to each other and see if you can come up with maybe three or four ideas about what it's about. So let's take a look.

Rocky slowly got up from the mat, planning his escape. He hesitated a moment and thought, `things were not going well.' What bothered him most was being held, especially since the charge against him had been made weak. He considered his present situation. The lock that held him was strong, but he thought he could break it. He knew, however, that his timing would have to be perfect. Rocky was aware that this was because of his early roughness that he had been penalized so severely, much too severely from his point of view. The situation was becoming frustrating. The pressure had been grinding on him for too long. He was being ridden unmercifully. Rocky was getting angry now. He knew that his success or failure would depend on what he did in the next few seconds.

Would you find a neighbor and talk about what you think this could be. We'll give you maybe two minutes to talk, and then let's talk about what you think this means and why. And support it, please, with the text. So do that now.

[PAUSE FOR PARTICIPANT ACTIVITY]

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We were talking and we think it's a wrestling match. He got up from his mat. There are locks and charges. He was penalized. The hold was strong and he couldn't break it and he only had a few seconds to do things.

KAREN SHELDON: So if you had some knowledge previous to this passage about wrestling you could very easily support your opinions with the text based on what you know. Excellent. Other ideas? Let's hear some more.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I thought it was about a cat who had just gotten in trouble for knocking something off of a counter or something and then gotten put into a cage. And when she said she thought it was a wrestler, I thought, oh, maybe that's it.

KAREN SHELDON: So perhaps a cat. And what evidence did you have in there, please, from the passage?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Because the cat could lay on a mat, and his early roughness, that he had been penalized so severely. And then he was becoming frustrated, he knew he had to do something.

KAREN SHELDON: Would you agree that that could be a possibility? Okay, good. Other ideas?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Rocky is a horse, a wild horse.

KAREN SHELDON: And what makes you think that?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We're in Texas.

(Laughter.)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Also the fact that it said that he had been ridden unmercifully. Also I guess the fact that he had been penalized because of his roughness, so possibly a wild horse that was not seen as being tamed and obviously was maybe treated more harshly.

KAREN SHELDON: How many could see that? Would that support your opinion? Okay. Good. Any others?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: A student who has been involved in not behaving well at school and now he is being pressured. The past is constantly being used against him and now he is getting upset about that. No matter what he does, he can't change that and he wants to get away.

KAREN SHELDON: Yes, that could be. Would you agree?And one more.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I kind of got the impression that Rocky might be in trouble with the law, because of planning his escape, he had been charged, because of his early roughness he was penalized too severely this time, that kind of stuff.

KAREN SHELDON: Very interesting. Now, is one answer more correct than another? Not really. And you could support from the text all of these ideas. Okay.

Let's continue to talk about what reading is. In the next couple of pages, you will see what Northside believes is a balanced literacy program. Reading with kids, reading to kids, reading next to kids, guided reading — all of these things are very important — reading aloud, shared reading, guided reading, independent reading. And it also applies to the writing process. I wanted to include this information in your packet so that you walk away with some really good tools to consider for your own districts.

The next page also talks about reading — what is reading. If you do not have a reading background, or in your college careers were not privy to, let's say, some reading classes and course work, you are going to need to know where kids are and why they are struggling. What makes a good reader? You guys are great readers. You model for your students, you model for your teachers, and that is encouraged. But we cannot assume that kids understand what they read simply because they are good word callers and they are good decoders.

I have had students that could read a whole paragraph, like about Rocky, and then be totally clueless as to what it was about. Have you had those students? Yes. And so we need to teach kids that reading is a thinking activity, that what you think about as you read should be supported in the text, and we go back to and reread all the time even as good readers.

Would you agree with that? Absolutely.

So this is for you to look at — what is reading, the reading process. And again, even when we talked about Rocky and that situation, you were using semantics and syntax and your graphophonic clues and your schemata or your background knowledge to make those decisions. And what is important is also to teach kids how to self-correct, how to crosscheck and how to monitor. And that is called metacomprehension, thinking about thinking as you read. Are we clear on that?

The next part, you will notice I have included in the packet a Framework for Developing Secondary Remedial Reading Programs. This came from the State level. Dr. Shirley Dickson, who was the Director of Reading, provided this information for all of us. And it really assisted me when I was writing some grants with our Grant Director Carol Smith.

And there are also some other graphics here listed for you. Some of us are visual learners and some folks really do appreciate seeing things in a graphic organizer rather than pages and pages of information. So on the last couple of pages of your packet you will find that information for you as well. Again, we tried to make meaning out of text. That's what reading is all about, a thinking activity.

I want to talk a little bit about the grants that we have written in our district. So far, I have been very fortunate to have a grant writing team. Carol Smith, our Director, and I have collaborated for almost $2 million for our teachers and our students in our district, and I am very proud of that. But for this particular presentation I have only included the grants that have applied to today's presentation.

You will notice, in 5th and 6th grade, in 2000 and 2001, we were awarded $954,000, which included the Junior Great Books for all readers, struggling, on-level and above-level readers. Read 180 for specifically our struggling readers for 4th graders and above, but this particular grant included 5th and 6th, so that is where we started. Soar to Success with Houghton-Mifflin, and Guided Reading Training by Rigby for our 5th grade teachers. All of this came together very nicely for our balanced literacy approach.

Then, in 2001-2002, right now, we are training 3rd and 4th grade teachers with the Junior Great Books; the Sadler-Oxford Vocabulary Workshop; the Scholastic Reading Inventory, which is our assessment for a pre-assessment and a post-assessment. Whenever you write a grant, you always need to have a pre-test and a post-test because that's hard data. The folks that award you these grants don't want to hear how wonderful the teachers loved everything. They want to see kid progress. So there is always an assessment attached so that you can see where the kids started and where they ended with your funds.

And then of course we use other funds, like ESA, Title VI, compensatory, to provide a lot of staff development that is ongoing for our teachers. To give you some idea, we have 500 3rd and 4th grade teachers, plus 1.5 reading specialists per elementary campus. So it was quite a challenge to train over 600 teachers in all of these things. Joe will tell you how that happened. We had on-site visits and a lot of help to support teachers with their kids. But the most important thing is modeling for kids how to read strategically and make meaning out of the text.

Knowing how to ask questions is the key to effective teaching practices and interactive, student-engaged learning. And you as the teacher, if you are skilled in asking questions and asking kids to support their thinking with the text, this will really empower students. And that is what we are about this morning in our presentation time together.

I would like to close my part of the session this morning with a visual. You will notice that sometimes our tasks as educators seems a little scary and a little daunting perhaps. But if we work together and collaborate, sometimes two heads actually are better than one. And when we put our heads together we come up with some really good ideas. And then of course, implementing these ideas and sharing the knowledge really does help get the job done.

I thank you for your time, and now we will have part 2 of our presentation.

Thank you, Karen.

At the Great Books Foundation, we have been very pleased over the last I guess two and a half years or so to be working with Dr. Sheldon and Northside Independent School District as one of the intervention strategies in the grants that she has just outlined for you.

To give you just a little bit of background so that you have some insight of where we come from and what we do, the Great Books Foundation is a 55-year-old nonprofit educational organization. We grew out of the Great Books movement at the University of Chicago, when Duey, Hutchins, and Adler were in residence. And many of you have followed, I'm sure, Mr. Adler's work over the years. He has been one of the most prolific educational theorists of our time. He just died this past year. I think he had slowed down to producing only one book a year by that point.

We have a mission. As a nonprofit organization, our mission is to help people learn how to think and share ideas. One of the ways that we have done that for the last 40 years is with Junior Great Books. Junior Great Books is a K-12 program. We have both method and materials to support the program. We combine interpretive activities and discussion with outstanding literature to help students do four things: to read for meaning, think critically, engage in dynamic discussions, and synthesize their ideas in writing.

Notice that Great Books is not a decoding program. We are a comprehension program, one that helps students understand what they are reading, to think critically about the words on the page. Our method is called shared inquiry. Shared inquiry is an open-ended questioning strategy. We combine interpretive discussion and activities, using this method of shared inquiry, to provide a structured search for meaning.

Shared inquiry is not the kind of process where you throw a question on the table and wherever the group takes it is fine. You are focused. You are focused on a real issue of meaning in the work of literature. You are not trying to reach consensus or all come to an agreement at the end of the discussion. What you are really trying to do is help each person delve more deeply into the literature by asking questions that are genuine and open ended. That genuine investigation of complex issues is facilitated in the training process.

Karen had mentioned that we have provided several approaches to helping teachers, empowering teachers, in Northside. Every teacher completes a two-day, what we call, shared inquiry learning workshop level 1. In that workshop we train teachers in how to really focus on identifying issues of meaning in the work of literature, then to formulate questions that reflect their own genuine curiosity about an issue of meaning in the literature.

Those questions not only reflect the teacher's curiosity but they also reflect that the teacher knows there is more than one plausible answer based on evidence in the text. And that plausibility needs to be relatively equal. You shouldn't have one answer that is really, really good, that you really want the students to go to, and another that you are not quite so happy with but you see where a few misguided students might choose that. That is kind of what Karen was getting at with the ambiguous paragraphs just a moment ago.

We also provided for Northside's teachers on-site coaching. Now, for some of the teachers that was going into the classroom and observing them actually leading the kind of discussion that you are going to see modeled here in just a few minutes. In other cases it was having Joe or one of many other consultants with the Foundation go into the classroom and model shared inquiry discussions with the students in the class. So teachers either got to see one of our instructors actually working with their students or one of our training instructors observe the teacher actually using the shared inquiry method in discussion with students.

In order to use the process most effectively, we have also published outstanding literature for classroom use. We have materials from kindergarten through 12th grade. Now, you might ask, why, if this is an instructional strategy, don't we just use it with every reading that is already in the basal series. Well, there is a reason. Not all literature will support this method of inquiry-based instruction. You really have to have some specific kinds of characteristics. One of those is that ambiguity in the text is very important, so that you can see more than one plausible answer.

All the selections are complex and multifaceted. They challenge both the student and the adult reader. That is why I told you at the beginning to relax, even though we're using a 3rd grade reading, it is quite challenging even for adults and quite interesting. We spark rigorous discussion by choosing the right literature to get started. Now, we do know and we encourage teachers to transfer the model of inquiry-based instruction to other literature and other disciplines after they have used that successfully with literature where we know the method of inquiry-based instruction works.

I am also pleased to tell you our series currently reflect diverse cultural sources. We were, like other parts of the Great Books movement, strongly accused for many years of publishing works written only by dead white men. Well, we searched the globe. We found outstanding literature from other ethnicities, other cultures, and we found so many types of people who were already dead that we could publish — not just dead white men.

[LAUGHTER]

DAN WALL: The other piece, for those of you who may have already been familiar with the Great Books movement in some way or other, the other piece that is very important is that we have developed daily activities to help get students ready for discussion. Karen had pointed out in her presentation that, I believe it was, the 5th and 6th grade teachers were all trained to use Junior Great Books with students of all abilities. In our previous program, that may not have been quite as encouraged as it is now, because all we had were a few readings and some guidance on developing questions. We know that even the most struggling reader has great ideas, but we need to get them ready for a text-based discussion, ready for that fourth day of discussion in the series that you see on the board.

In addition to the daily activities that are outlined up here, you also have another packet that has on the front of it "The Fire on the Mountain" and the five sessions that we see up here on the slide. On the first day we engage in a text opener. That is an into activity, a way to get students into the text. Then we do a first reading. And notice on the slide it says specifically a first oral reading. We encourage oral reading with students at all levels. Let's face it, even we as adults still like to be read to. High school students, kindergarten students, they all love to be read to.

Now, you also build in the support for those students who may be struggling and decoding. By giving them an oral interpretation of the literature, you give them a chance to participate in the discussion on the fourth day of activities on a more equal footing by reading the selection orally. We also have audiotapes so that you can set up a listening center so they can get multiple readings of the story.

Then we move to sharing questions. Sharing questions is a way to get the students' questions on the table. At the Foundation, we can see that there are three types of questions you can ask about any work of literature: factual, interpretive, or evaluative. Factual questions we are all familiar with. Those are the questions that ask simple things like: What is the plot? Who are the characters? It is really just looking at the words on the page, identifying the primary components.

Evaluative questions, we see that moving into: What does it mean to you? But the great middle ground of interpreting the literature is where we spend 90 percent of our time. Most reading series will start with factual and jump to evaluative. Interpretive questions begin more like: What does the author mean when the author says...? And then you provide the students with an opportunity to support their position based on the evidence in the text. We really stay focused on the text.

In fact, when Joe gives you the rules for shared inquiry discussion, that will be one of the things that is emphasized. We won't bring in outside evidence; we look strictly at the text that is in front of us and interpret that literature. As I said, that is where we spent 90 percent of our time.

Now, when we are asking for sharing questions from students, we are not just focused on interpretive questions. We are getting their questions about the literature. They may have questions about vocabulary, about geography, about cultures. Those questions will come to the table, and that will be the basis of any additional student research that you use, any cross disciplinary/interdisciplinary activity.

On day 2, we move to something called directed notes. You see, for the past 55 years, we have told everyone, before you engage in shared inquiry discussion, read the story twice. Now, you may guess that as we watch students' eyes roll in the back of their heads as we said that, we did get a clue that maybe the students were not always getting the second reading. So we developed an activity that if you review it with the students, it gets them reading in depth by focusing in taking notes during the second reading.

On the third day, we move to interpreting words. This is more of a context vocabulary exercise, where we are looking at the nuances of meaning in a work of literature. Now, today, we are going to be touching on session 1 and session 2. Neither Joe nor I can give you a full experience because each of these activities would take a full class period, anywhere from 35 to 55 minutes, depending on the grade level that you are working with. What we are going to do is let you taste it, so that when we come back for the question-and-answer period at the end you can ask questions and have an experience that would give you a basis for asking the questions.
In session 4, we move to the heart and soul of Junior Great Books; that is, shared inquiry discussion, the discussion where you have a question on the table and everyone's opinion is valued, everyone has a right answer, as long as it is based on evidence in the text. Sometimes folks say there is no right or wrong answer with Junior Great Books, and that is not quite true. There is no wrong answer as long as the position is based on evidence that can be found in the text.

Session 5 begins to move towards synthesizing the ideas in writing. Now, we have writing activities integrated throughout the daily activities, but you bring it together at the end so that students have an opportunity to develop a logical writing project after the reading and the discussion are over.

Now, today, we are going to be using a story called "The Fire on the Mountain." But to get ready for that, I would like for you to turn to the next page on this handout and look at situation number 2, and read along with me.

"You have been hiking all day in the woods, but you stayed out longer than you meant. By the time you start back, it's already getting dark. You feel like you've been walking a long time and you're getting tired. Suddenly the path turns and you see the light from your friends' campfire off in the distance. How would seeing the fire make you feel?"

Now, take just a moment, take your pen or pencil that you have and jot down some notes to yourself as to how that would make you feel. And while you are doing that, I would urge you to do this as an adult. In fact, all the activities working with the story, Joe and I will ask you to please approach as an adult. Also, from this point until we get to the question-and-answer period, we will be looking at asking you to focus on the story — your questions about method, your questions about how this program has worked with Karen Sheldon's program at Northside — those questions we ask you to hold for the end of the session.

Now, one of the reasons that I ask you to focus on this as an adult is that I have done this presentation in numbers of settings around the country, and I have seen adult teachers and administrators and parent volunteers and community volunteers try to emulate the behavior of 3rd graders. It is not pretty.

[LAUGHTER]

DAN WALL: Situation number 2: How would seeing this fire make you feel? Who would like to share with us your answer to this question?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I would feel safe.

DAN WALL: Safe. What does that feeling of safety feel like? What does that mean?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: That you're not going to get lost. If you are out in the woods, you don't know where you're going, but suddenly you see that light, okay, now it's okay, I'm back home.
DAN WALL: I saw a hand over here.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I would feel relieved.

DAN WALL: Does relieved mean something similar to safe or is that a different kind of feeling?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: It would be connected to it in this instance, because I'm relieved that I am not going to be lost, which is what she was talking about.

DAN WALL: Let me ask you another follow-up here. If you are feeling safe and relieved, what does that do to your physical person? What kind of feeling does that give you physically?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I had not only the physical sense of warmth from the fire but my body became warm and relaxed.
DAN WALL: How is it that your body can become warm and relaxed just by seeing a fire?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think it's when you're afraid or anxious, your body becomes tense. And to me it is a feeling of coldness, and the opposite is a feeling of warmth.

DAN WALL: We are going to be working with a reading here today that has fire as a central focus point. And some of these points that you were just raising are going to be very important in that story. I am going to read the story to you and ask you, while I'm reading the story, to mark in the text. Now, we have copied this story for you, and I can give you permission to write in the copy that we have.

Mark the text with, say, a question mark anywhere you see something that you are not quite sure about. You might put an exclamation point beside the text where you see something you think is really important. Or if there is something you want to come back and look at again, you might underline. You can use any marks that you want as long as you know how to interpret those and decode. Just mark the text where you have a question about something, you're not quite sure about it, you want to know more; an exclamation point where you see something really exciting, that you think is very important; or underline something you just need a little more information on, something you think may be terribly important to the story.

The text of the story is in the handout that has the picture on the front. Everyone should have a copy of this. And I would ask you to turn to the first page inside that folder and follow along as we read the story, "The Fire on the Mountain."

People say that in the old days, in the City of Addis Ababa, there was a young man by the name of Arha. He had come as a boy from the country of GuragÈ, and in the city he became the servant of a rich merchant, Haptom Hasei. Haptom Hasei was so rich that he owned everything that money could buy. And often he was very bored because he had tired of everything he knew, and there was nothing new for him to do.

One cold night, when the damp wind was blowing across the plateau, Haptom called to Arha to bring wood for the fire. When Arha was finished, Haptom began to talk. `How much cold can a man stand?' he said, speaking at first to himself. `I wonder if it would be possible for a man to stand on the highest peak, Mount Suluta, where the coldest winds blow, through an entire night without blankets or clothing and yet not die.' `I don't know,' Arha said, `but wouldn't it be a foolish thing?'

`Well, perhaps, if he had nothing to gain by it, it would be a foolish thing to spend the night that way,' Haptom said. `But I would be willing to bet that a man couldn't do it.' `Oh, I am sure a courageous man could stand naked on Mount Suluta throughout an entire night and not die of it,' Arha said. `But as for me, it isn't my affair, since I have nothing to bet.'

`Well, I'll tell you what,' Haptom said, `since you are so sure it can be done, I'll make a bet with you anyway. If you can stand among the rocks on Mount Suluta for an entire night without food or water or clothing or blankets or fire and not die of it, then I will give you 10 acres of good farmland for your own, with a house and cattle.'

Arha could hardly believe what he had heard. `Do you really mean this?' he asked. `I am a man of my word," Haptom replied. `Then tomorrow night I will do it,' Arha said, `and afterwards, for all the years to come, I shall till my own soil.' But he was very worried, because the wind swept bitterly across the peak. So in the morning, Arha went to a wise old man from the Gurage tribe and told him of the bet he had made.

The old man listened quietly and thoughtfully. And when Arha had finished, he said, `I will help you. Across the valley from Suluta is a high rock which can be seen in the daytime. Tomorrow night, as the sun goes down, I shall build a fire there so that it can be seen from where you stand on the peak. All night long, you must watch the light of my fire. Do not close your eyes or let the darkness creep upon you. As you watch my fire, think of its warmth and think of me, your friend, sitting there tending it for you. If you do this, you will survive, no matter how bitter the night wind.'

Arha thanked the old man warmly and went back to Haptom's house with a light heart. He told Haptom he was ready. And in the afternoon, Haptom sent him, under the watchful eyes of other servants, to the top of Mount Suluta. There, as night fell, Arha removed his clothes and stood in the damp, cold wind that swept across the plateau with the setting sun.

Across the valley, several miles away, Arha saw the light of his friend's fire, which shown like a star in the blackness. The wind turned colder and seemed to pass through his flesh and chill the marrow in his bones. The rock on which he stood felt like ice. Each hour the cold numbed him more, until he thought he would never be warm again. But he kept his eyes upon the twinkling light across the valley and remembered that his old friend sat there, tending a fire for him.

Sometimes wisps of fog passed. He sneezed and coughed and shivered and began to feel ill. Yet, all night through he stood there. And only when the dawn came did he put on his clothes and go down the mountain, back to Addis Ababa. Haptom was very surprised to see Arha, and he questioned his servants thoroughly. `Did he stay all night without food or drink or blankets or clothing?' `Yes,' his servants said, `he did all of these things.'

`Well, you are a strong fellow,' Haptom said to Arha. `How did you manage to do it?' `I simply watched the light of a fire on a distant hill,' Arha said. `What? You watched a fire? Then you lose the bet and you are still my servant and you own no land.' `But this fire was not close enough to warm me. It was far across the valley.' `I won't give you the land,' Haptom said, `you didn't fulfill the conditions. It was only the fire that saved you.'

Arha was very sad. He went again to his friend in the Gurage tribe and told him what had happened. `Take the matter to the judge,' the old man advised him. Arha went to the judge and complained, and the judge sent for Haptom. When Haptom told his story, and the servants said once more that Arha had watched a distant fire across the valley, the judge said, `No, you have lost, for Haptom Hasei's condition was that you must be without fire.'

Once more Arha went to his old friend with the sad news that he was doomed to the life of a servant, as though he had not gone through the ordeal on the mountaintop. `Don't give up hope,' the old man said. `More wisdom grows wild in the hills than in any city judge.' He got up from where he sat and went to find a man named Hailu, in whose house he had been a servant when he was young. He explained to the good man about the bet between Haptom and Arha, and asked if something couldn't be done.

`Don't worry about it,' Hailu said, after thinking for a while. `I will take care of it for you.' Some days later, Hailu sent invitations to many people in the city to come to a feast at his house. Haptom was among them, and so was the judge who had ruled Arha had lost the bet.

When the day of the feast arrived, the guests came riding on mules, with fine trappings, their servants strung out behind them on foot. Haptom came with 20 servants, one of whom held a silk umbrella over his head to shade him from the sun, and four drummers played music that signified the great Haptom was here.

The guests sat on soft rugs laid out for them and talked. From the kitchen came the odors of wonderful things to eat — roast goat, roast corn and durra, pancakes called injura, and many tantalizing sauces. The smell of the food only accentuated the hunger of the guests. Time passed. The food should have been served, but they didn't see it. They only smelled vapors that drifted from the kitchen.

The evening came, and still no food was served. The guests began to whisper among themselves. It was very curious, the honorable Hailu had not had the food brought out. Still the smells came from the kitchen. At last, one of the guests spoke out for all the others. `Hailu, why do you do this to us? Why do you invite us to a feast and then serve us nothing?' `Why, can't you smell the food?' Hailu asked with surprise. `Indeed, we can. But smelling is not eating. There is no nourishment in it.'

`And is there warmth in a fire so distant that it can hardly be seen?' Hailu asked. `If Arha was warmed by the fire he watched while standing on Mount Suluta, then you would have been fed by the smells coming from my kitchen.'

The people agreed with him. The judge now saw his mistake, and Haptom was shamed. He thanked Hailu for his advice, and announced that Arha was, then and there, the owner of the land, the house and the cattle. Then Hailu ordered the food brought in, and the feast began.

DAN WALL: Now, folks, as we began that activity, I asked you to make some notes as we were reading. I would like to take a few of your questions, and I am going to ask Joe to write the questions up so we can read them. What questions do you have about the story? They can be factual, interpretive or evaluative. What do you want to know more about?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Why he would provoke that question to that man, asking why would anybody want to do that anyway. What made him think of doing that? Because he could because he was so rich? And because this was a lesser man, to see if he could — maybe his wealth gave him higher powers or something. And then the servant, who was obviously lower in society or whatever, why would he want him to do that?

DAN WALL: Let's make sure Joe is getting the essence of your question.

KAREN SHELDON: There were about four questions in that response. That's great.

DAN WALL: Why did Haptom wonder how much cold a man could stand?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: What made him think of that?

KAREN SHELDON: What is his motivation?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: What sustained him to enable him to survive that night?

DAN WALL: What sustained him to survive the night?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I would like to know more about where Addis Ababa is, what it looks like.

DAN WALL: What does Addis Ababa look like? Other questions about the story?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was curious as to how cold it actually was.

DAN WALL: How cold was it?

DAN WALL: I would like to go over that quotation that says "More wisdom grows wild in the hills than in any city judge." Can we make that a question?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I wonder what it means?

DAN WALL: What does the saying "More wisdom grows wild in the hills than in any city judge" mean? Other questions?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I had two words that I wasn't quite sure of, trappings and the other one was durra.

DAN WALL: What do these words mean, trappings and durra?
Other questions you have?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: There were some words that were Ethiopian food and I wonder what those taste like?

DAN WALL: What do the Ethiopian foods mentioned actually taste like? Let's stop there and take a look at a couple of these questions. Let's take a look at number six first, looking at, what do these words mean, trappings and durra? If you take a look at the story, where do we find the word "trappings"? What page is that on? Page 68. Let's take a look at the text itself first. Who would read that sentence that has "trappings" in it for us?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: "When the day of the feast arrived, the guests came riding on mules, with fine trappings, their servants strung out behind them on foot."

DAN WALL: Now, looking at that sentence and the paragraphs around it, what might you infer trappings might mean?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Maybe it's some sort of saddle or some sort of costume or decoration for the mule.

DAN WALL: Some sort of saddle or decoration, costume, for the mule. Any other ideas?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Belongings, their belongings.

DAN WALL: Trappings meaning belongings. Other possibilities?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Possibly their clothing.

DAN WALL: Their clothing. How about durra, where do we see that one in the story? I believe it's on the same page, isn't it? Who would like to read that sentence for us that has that in there?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: "From the kitchen came the odors of wonderful things to eat — roast goat, roast corn and durra, pancakes called injura, and many tantalizing sauces."

DAN WALL: Looking at that sentence and the paragraphs around that, what might you deduce the word "durra" could mean?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I believe it's a vegetable.

DAN WALL: A vegetable.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: A butter.

DAN WALL: A butter.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Something that might be roasted, because it's a part of a list with roast goat and roast corn.

DAN WALL: Something that might be roasted, because of the placement of the word in the list.

Certainly with student questions like this I would first take them to the text and get context clues. But that may not be enough. They may need more. Now, folks, when you think about the genius of this activity, what will students be willing to research more readily, a question that you ask, for which you already have an answer you want them to reach or a question they asked because they have genuine curiosity about something in the story? This is just a factual question.

Let's take a look at another one. Why did Haptom wonder how much cold a man can stand? Let's take a look in the story at where that is mentioned. We are on page 59, at the bottom, and carrying over, on page 60, the first paragraph. "`How much cold can a man stand?' he said, speaking at first to himself."

Now, looking at this whole story, how would you answer that question? How would you interpret the story, to say, how could Haptom wonder how much cold a man can stand?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was going to say it goes back to the second paragraph, that talked about the fact that he was so bored because he was tired of everything he knew. So he had nothing to do but sit around and think about things, and this was one of the things that came to mind. He was just curious.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was going to say, going along with that, often people who have everything they want don't really care about other people's feelings or what happens to other people.

DAN WALL: When you look at the story, what in the story makes you think that Haptom doesn't really care about other people?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, he is willing to let this person die.

DAN WALL: What else do you see here that might help answer that?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: In the text, it says that Arha was bringing wood for the fire. So Haptom must have been feeling chilly to ask his servant to bring more wood for the fire.

DAN WALL: Thank you. Now, folks, we won't take time to go through all the questions that you raised today. Certainly, when you're working with students in the classroom you would do that. You would work through the questions. This gives you a tremendous springboard to do interdisciplinary/cross disciplinary study. It gives you a chance to get your students doing additional research. It also gives you a chance to teach your students that it is important for them to ask questions just as much as it is for you, for them to develop a curiosity about works of literature.

In fact, one educational theorist — and I can't remember her name — uses the term "chunk it down." Inquiry-based learning is a very complex process. The activities getting students ready for inquiry-based discussion chunk down that complexity. Here students are actually inquiring in the text. When we move to Joe, who is just about to take over here, you will see how we chunk down that evidencing process, reading closely and providing evidence in the directed note activity.

And with that, I will give Joe an opportunity to lead us into that activity and to discussion.

JOE WHITE: Thanks, Dan. In working with students in Northside, particularly some struggling students, students who are struggling readers, I have been employing another activity that is not listed here, that we recommend when we are talking about our read aloud program, which is our K-1 program. And that is the use of artwork. And I was thinking before I came here today, if I were to ask students to draw a picture of a character or a scene. Because you notice there aren't a lot of pictures in our materials.

The reason for that is because drawings and pictures are interpretations, and we really want to leave that activity to the students. And even though the pictures are there to assist, there is a question about how far do you want to go with that assist. Even the reading of the story that Dan did, we would want to look at it as an assist in helping all kids understand the story and bring everybody to it. But even the reading can be an interpretation, so we would want to encourage kids to read the story and to dramatize scenes. We try to build that in, in many cases. But the artwork is a fun thing to do.

So it occurred to me that if I were to ask some students to draw a scene, just that last scene perhaps, where it says that Haptom was shamed. And I just thought that last scene would be a fun one, if they could just draw that. And I am wondering how many different ways we might look at that last scene. Then you have a fun activity where you simply ask the students: Why did you draw it that way? And why is he looking like that? And why is he smiling? Or why is he not smiling?

That discussion about their artwork will cause them to be thinking and reflect back upon the story itself, and refer to the passages or give reasons, and you get some insight into their interpretations. So it is a really nice way to start engaging struggling readers particularly in getting to think and talk about the story.

We are going to move now to session 2. Dan has done session 1. Session 2, we can do it the way I am going to ask you to do it or we can do it, particularly if I'm working with struggling readers, I might read the story again and ask them to do this activity with me, and we would stop frequently to talk about it, or we can do it even as a homework piece in some cases. I know some teachers are using it that way.

This is called a second reading with directed notes, and I think it is a really important activity, particularly in preparing students to be eager and ready for what we are going to do in a little bit, which is our shared inquiry discussion. My request then is for you to go back to the story, go to the very beginning, and this time read it on your own. And I don't anticipate that you will get through the entire story before I stop you, because that won't be necessary to illustrate the activity.

What I would like you to do is read the story again, and think carefully about the characters in the story. And ask yourself these things: Where is it that you believe that Haptom or Arha is feeling close to others? And put a "C" there. Just mark a passage or a line or a section there with a "C" if in your judgment Arha or Haptom feels close to others. And then mark a passage or a paragraph or a sentence with an "N" where you believe either Arha or Haptom does not feel close. So let's do that, and then we will compare and talk about the different places that you have marked and why.

[PAUSE FOR PARTICIPANT ACTIVITY]

JOE WHITE: What do you see as the connection between boredom and not feeling close?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: He doesn't seem to have anything that feels important to him, anyone else that he cares about. He is in his own little world, sort of.

JOE WHITE: Do you agree with that?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Usually being around other people, you're stimulated by their thoughts and conversation with them.

JOE WHITE: So you have an "N" there as well?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes.

JOE WHITE: And this is Haptom not feeling close?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Right.

JOE WHITE: Anybody else have an "N" anyplace else?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I also have an "N" by the first paragraph.

JOE WHITE: Can you read the first paragraph?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Sure.

People say in the old days, in the City of Addis Ababa, there was a young man by the name of Arha. He had come as a boy from the country of Gurage, and in the city he became the servant of a rich merchant Haptom Hasei.

JOE WHITE: And what did you put there?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I put an "N", because he came all alone as a boy to be a servant. And how much lonelier can you get than that, leaving everything?

JOE WHITE: Did you have an "N" at the same place where she did?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I had one at "One cold night, when the damp wind was blowing across the plateau, Haptom called to Arha to bring wood for the fire."

JOE WHITE: Tell us about that.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: If you're cold, you're alone. Typically, when you're alone, you're cold and you don't feel any warmth from anybody around you. So he had them bring wood. So he brought somebody. He brought the wood and the person to make him feel close.

JOE WHITE: This is Haptom with an "N"?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Right.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I had the same.

JOE WHITE: Did anybody have a "C"? Where is the first place you put a "C"?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: "`I don't know,' Arha said, `but wouldn't it be a foolish thing?'"

JOE WHITE: What page is that?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Sixty.

JOE WHITE: Everybody, on page 60, do you see that passage that Eva was talking about? Tell us about that, Eva. Why did you put a "C" there?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, Arha was thinking that it would be foolish to be doing a thing like that. So he was showing a lot more feeling and compassion for others than Haptom could have done by risking somebody to have that experience.

JOE WHITE: Christine, did you put a "C" at that same place?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: No.

JOE WHITE: Why not?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I don't know. I guess I just thought he was reflecting on how he would feel.

JOE WHITE: It didn't strike you as necessarily feeling close, okay. Anyplace else where there is a "C"?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My first "C" is on page 62, where Arha goes to his friend and his friend talks about lighting the fire for him. I see lighting the first as symbolic, too. I mean, it's his friend and he is willing to stay up all night and go through it with him, without breaking the rules to do it.

JOE WHITE: Did you have another place marked that we haven't commented on?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: No.

JOE WHITE: Well, let's just talk about that activity for a second. We would spend quite a bit of time with that activity, because we would want to go through the whole story, and paragraph by paragraph actually. And what I have found is this is an important step in the process of preparing students to think critically about the story. This is really where you get to know the story and know the passages.

During our discussion, and during shared-inquiry discussion, we want students to be able to refer to the story and to have thought about these passages. I tell folks, you don't read the story and then have a shared-inquiry discussion. It takes some time to help students think interpretively about the story. That is what Dan was doing with the sharing of questions. That's what this activity, called directed notes, does. And I have found it invaluable. Yes?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: When you did this activity with us, I looked at it very differently. I was looking for actual literal proof that characters were feeling compassion or not feeling compassion. And it was really interesting to hear other people's opinion. And what I'm curious about is, as an instructor, do you just do it open-ended like this and hope that that comes up, or do you actually guide the students as to what type of answer?

JOE WHITE: That's a great question. The answer is you answered it, the first way. Absolutely. And it always does happen that people will read a passage differently. Good readers will read a story and look at these passages. And the same passages, somebody might make the judgment, I think they're feeling close here. And so I'll say, you know, the way I'm understanding this, no, I don't think there is a closeness here.

My job as the leader at this point is to really just try to get those differences out. And also, so that you have that experience that you say, I think you kind of enjoyed it, of hearing somebody else that you value — you know, you value other people's thoughts here — looking at this differently. Then the question is, what does that do for you? It makes you want to look at it again, doesn't it? Yes.

And so you look at the passage a little bit more closely. You start thinking about, well, wait a minute, maybe I need to consider this. Then you decide, no, I don't, or yes, I do. But, nevertheless, the interaction and the sharing ideas among others, as Karen talked about earlier, is part of the collaborative process that we call shared inquiry. And so yes, that's what we are doing. Any other questions about that step?

JOE WHITE: The handout that you had on the activities, if you will look on page 21, I believe it is, this is what you could do after you have had this discussion of the directed notes. And it is a nice question, I think. We won't take time to talk about it, because we will have another one here to consider in a little bit.

But I like it. Because what happens is, once you have really looked at it, you realize you've got more "C's" by Arha than Haptom. And so it presents a question, why is it easier for Arha to feel close to other people than it is for Haptom? That is one of those interpretive questions that Dan was talking about that, I bet you, we could come up with more than one good answer to that question. What would be fun is to then have the students write, and then you would discuss that for a little bit.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: As you are going through this process, if you have a student who comes up with something that seems very far afield from what all of the other responses of the other students are, how do you deal with that?

JOE WHITE: I simply ask them why they think so, and what are they reading there. And also I like to ask kids to read the passage the way they think it sounded. And then others begin to reflect about that.

One of the things that I have to make sure teachers understand is that there aren't right answers to this. And our materials will indicate different passages' sample responses; that is, how you might anticipate people might respond. But at no time are we directing or trying to get the students to say these things or recognize that.

What is really nice about this when I've worked with kids is that you can't help but sort of have your mind made up sometimes about how the passage is supposed to be read, and you will have a student convince you that maybe there is another way. And that only happens when you are really open. So, yes, I treat it very openly. And that openness I think creates a sense of trust, and then people start really saying, I got a wild idea or a wild notion, and so somebody poses it, and then it get somebody else thinking. So you have to do that.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: When you're doing the sharing questions and responding to that directed notes prompt, how are you structuring the interaction? Is it just the teacher and the whole class, or could you have the kids in pairs, sharing their interpretations or in groups of four? How is that? Is it always just the teacher and the whole class?

JOE WHITE: No, I don't think it is always any one of those formats. I think you have identified some alternatives that, depending upon the class, and you see some opportunities to say, well, I bet I could get more students engaged by the size of the group — there are lots of ways to get the kids to collaborate and then come back and talk about those and share them in full groups.

I don't think there is a hard and fast rule particularly on these activities, the sharing questions, the way you record them, the way we recorded them. You could have students work in groups and record them. You could have students write their own questions and put them on the wall and really post them all over. And the whole week long people might be writing new questions, as the story comes to them and they think about it. So it's good to be creative, with lots of ways of doing that.

KAREN SHELDON: This may be a really good time to show you the bookmark idea. Because there are good lead questions and sentence stems for kids to understand and respond to what they read. So we have provided this for you as well. It can be for any content area, and it gives the kids some thinking time.

JOE WHITE: Now we want to go ahead and move to our next activity. This will be a shared inquiry discussion. One of the first things we always do before we have a shared inquiry discussion — in fact, you can do this very often for all these activities — is to you a seating chart. Because what you are then as the teacher is the leader of a shared inquiry. That means there are a lot of things to keep track of, particularly ideas, and you don't want to lose them. So we make a seating chart, and I always use it when I am going to have a shared inquiry discussion.

That's what I would like to do right now. But before I do, I have some empty shared, and if any of you would like to — I know some of you have participated from the back, and I encourage you to come on up and take a chair at this point — if you feel like you would like to participate in about a 10- or 15-minute discussion of this story, come on up. Otherwise we will limit the discussion to the group on the inside. How about your first name and where is your hometown?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Susan, here in San Antonio

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Marcella. I'm from Wilmington, Illinois.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Sarah. I'm from Hardwick, Vermont.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Cindy. I'm from Oklahoma.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Nancy, from Sacramento, California.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Elizabeth, from Sacramento, California.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Chris, from Caldwell, Idaho.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Karen, from Illinois.

JOE WHITE: Where in Illinois?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mokena. It's a southwest suburb of Chicago.

JOE WHITE: I'm from Normal, Illinois.

KAREN SHELDON: And I'm originally from Chicago. We've been here for 20 years.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Chris, from Hershey, Pennsylvania.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm Yokepeng, from Singapore.

JOE WHITE: Thank you very much. Nice to have you here.

I've already indicated why I'm doing this. There are really three reasons. One is teachers keep these seating charts — they will keep them much neater than I'm going to — this is from yesterday's or the other day. This is from working with teachers at one of my workshops on a course. You can see what I'm doing. I'm keeping track of ideas on this. It is also helping me keep track of the participants. And as much as I think I'm good at this, I'm not as good as I think. And when I see it visually here in front of me, it really helps me keep track of participants.

The second thing is I'm trying to keep track of ideas, as I said. And the third one is — and this happens when you've had students working with shared inquiry over a period of time and they have really gotten accustomed to this and they know what's coming — the ideas can come so quickly that you need to slow the discussion down. Because, as the leader, we always say the discussion can't go any faster than I as the leader can keep track of it. So that's the third reason. We say that's pacing a discussion. So it's a neat device, a tool really, for helping be a leader of a discussion.

Before we go into the discussion, I would like you to take a look at this sheet, called the Rules of Shared Inquiry. I got a kick out of this when I first started looking at this. It is not called the "guidelines" or the "suggestions" but the "rules." And I think that is because, over the 50-some years that we have been working with this, these notions have developed that say, these rules need to be adhered to if this is going to work, if we are going to have a collaborative search for meaning together.

The first one is that only people who have read the story may take part in a shared inquiry discussion. I amend that to say if kids have heard the story, I let them take part. But certainly I have been part of reading groups where people came to our meetings after having promised to read something, and it never stopped them from talking but they hadn't read the material. And you know what happens — we move off the text. With shared inquiry, we want to stay with the text, so we must insist that this be a rule.

The second thing is it's not just a rule, but if you change the word "may" to "can" it's an assertion of fact, that only people who have read the story can take part in shared inquiry. In a way, a shared inquiry discussion with students and with adults is like a jury deliberating a case. It's a little bit like that. It's an analogy that has some problems that I'll talk about later. But you just wouldn't let people who hadn't seen the testimony in the jury room. So it is somewhat like that notion.

Two, we discuss only the story everyone has read. Oftentimes a story will remind you of a story that you have heard before or another situation and you want to tie that in and bring it in. I allow that, but only briefly. Then I'll say, we want to get back to this story. Well, what in this story makes you think that? So we stay focused on the story that we all have read. Otherwise the inquiry will break down.

Three, we do not use other people's opinions about the story unless you can back them up with evidence of your own. When I was teaching high school I used to call this the Cliff Note syndrome. I know the answer to this question because I read it last night. And I'm happy if somebody has gone to that much effort. Of course the next question is, do you agree and why do you think so? And what evidence do you find in the story that suggests that to you?

We really encourage the stories to be read at home and discussed if at all possible. And if a student comes to school and says, I know why Haptom did what he did, because my dad said... wouldn't that be great? Of course you say, wonderful, why did he say that? Do you agree with that? And what in the story makes you think that? Again, coming back, putting the burden on the person to support an answer.

And the fourth one, which we often say is tough on teachers particularly, is that leaders may only ask questions; they may not answer them. So don't try to trick me.

I will try to stay with that as best I can once we move to the discussion. And just a couple of other points. You will hear this in the video. Because after we do this, we will watch some 3rd grade students also having a shared inquiry discussion. And the leader will say somewhat the same thing to them that I am going to say — just because I can only ask questions doesn't mean I am the only one that can ask questions. So I encourage you, if you hear somebody say something that I don't ask about, ask about it. Come right on in.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Before you get started, I'm curious about how long it takes for a teacher to really be comfortable with this process?

JOE WHITE: We do a two-day course. In the course — and this is what we've done with the folks here at Northside — we talk a great deal about the kinds of questions that you want to ask. They participate in shared inquiry as participants. And then we spend quite a bit of time practicing leading in the session. Also we go through the activities and talk about what are we doing during those things in dealing with the kinds of questions that some of you have already asked.

Then it's great to go and be able to visit with them after they have had the training. And there are a couple of things that we have done. We have coached. And in any one of the particular activities that we have done, people can ask, can you help me with this part or that? Or how am I doing with the directed notes? Or how am I setting that up? Or with the shared inquiry. Oftentimes people will say, we would like to see you do it with our students. So then we do it.

It is important that we talk about what we are going to do before and that we have a chance to debrief afterwards. Building the consultation in after we have done the initial training really helps. And then we do a one-day review or refresher type courses. Because what happens is people begin to try to incorporate this, things they hadn't thought about come up, and they would like to talk and address them. And it's really a nice thing to do for creating collegial dialogue among a staff. And you see that in some of the schools, where people are really sharing the problems and they're starting to talk a language using these kinds of terms.

KAREN SHELDON: If I could also address that. In our elementary schools, we have teams of teachers that work together and we have team leaders, and so there is an opportunity in the day to get together and talk about how things are going, what needs to be improved, and there is a lot of support built in. And I will say that as you do the shared inquiry method, the more you do it — just like in anything else — the more you practice, the better you get.

I always thought that the kids would not like to talk. I thought, oh, boy, how is that going to work? Because I was teaching remedial kids. But I found that my most creative students were my lower-level readers, who think wonderfully, but they just needed extra support with maybe the tape or me reading it aloud to them. But once they got the idea, boy, they were the most engaged discussion leaders and had the best questions.

So I think it will lend itself — knowing how to ask questions, the kids will ask questions, and you as a leader don't respond necessarily but you ask a question that follows up to clarify their thinking. Because, as we know, the person doing the talking is the one doing the thinking. So it does lend itself — and you will see that in the video. Good question. Thanks.

JOE WHITE: I would like everybody to take a look on the other side of that sheet, where it says the four rules. And you see where it says your leader's question, would you please write down this question that Dan has just put up on the overhead. Because this is a puzzle I found in this story. I wrote down some of your questions. This is one that I had identified and I found pretty curious in the thing.

On page 62 of the story, Haptom says to Arha, when Arha says "Do you really mean this?" and he says, "I am a man of my word." So the question I am asking is, according to the story, is Haptom a man of his word? Would you write the question, think about it a little bit, and reflect back on what you know about the story and so on, and decide. And then write a brief answer, where it says your answer before discussion.

So if you think yes, he was a man of his word, say yes, and briefly state why. If you think he isn't, say no, and give a reason for that.

KAREN SHELDON: The question for discussion should not be a one-word answer. If you can answer it with yes or no, it's not a really good question. You want some discussion. You want some diverse thinking. An open-ended question is preferred, with text support, when you have your discussion.

JOE WHITE: What do you think, according to this story, is Haptom Hasei a man of his word? Elizabeth, what do you think?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think that because of his status and wealth, he follows certain rules, and that these rules are cold, hard and fast. And he believes that his servant completely disregarded the rules. So the rules were, his word was, you follow these rules to the letter or you don't get your land. When the rules were reinterpreted and he found out that, just like any corporation, any businessperson, okay, I see that your rule could be right and I found out that my interpretation of these rules was wrong, so you can have your land now, I think that he followed through and I do think that he is a man of his word.

JOE WHITE: Tell me more about that "to the letter" of the rule. What did you mean?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: There are certain people, and they tend to be leaders of corporations and people with great wealth, and they devise their own set of rules or they follow strict rules — okay, you're going to go up on this mountain, or this plateau, and the wind is going to be blowing and it's going to be really cold and you can't have clothes or food or fire, and that's it, you can't have it anywhere. And he never said it can't be 10 miles away, but he said you cannot have it. And you can't have it anywhere physically. So he had it and the rules were broken, so it was cut off.

JOE WHITE: Where does he set those conditions that you're talking about, what page?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Page 61, "without food or water or clothing or blankets or fire," and will not die of it. So you can't have any of those things.

JOE WHITE: Susan, do you agree with that? Is Haptom a man of his word according to the story?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, I do. Because I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. And I know it's based on interpretation, so people can interpret rules in different ways. And that was his interpretation of the rule he set forth.

JOE WHITE: Why does he change his mind and give him the land, there at the end of the story?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Because he saw another interpretation and realized that that could be a correct interpretation of the rule.

JOE WHITE: Does he think that now that is the correct interpretation?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I would think so, since he agreed to give the man the land.

JOE WHITE: What do you think, Sarah?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: That was my first thought, but when I went back and read it, I don't believe that he does feel — he was shamed into feeling that. He was forced to think that. And it was the judge that made him give him the land.

JOE WHITE: And that's on the last page?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes.

JOE WHITE: Could you find that for us?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: On page 71. It says: "The people agreed with him. The judge now saw his mistake, and Haptom was shamed. He thanked Hailu for his advice." Originally I thought the pronoun "he" was connected to Haptom. But when I read it again now I think it's the judge that thanked Hailu for his advice, because it was the judge that made the final decision of the way they saw the interpretation of the fire.

JOE WHITE: And because of thinking that, what does that suggest to you?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I still believe that Haptom was a man of his word, but I don't think that he understood the interpretation. I think that in the end he felt he was wronged and that he shouldn't have had to give the land to Arha.

JOE WHITE: So is he or is he not a man of his word then?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: He is. I think he believes he is, yes.

JOE WHITE: Is he, according to the story?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think that's an opinion, and I'm not sure where I stand on that.

JOE WHITE: You commented on that word "shame." You commented that Haptom was shamed. What does that suggest to you?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: That he was the only one that didn't see it the way everybody else did. And I don't know much about the culture, but what I'm guessing is that because everybody thought he made a bad decision that there must have been some sort of town consequence for being shamed. Like they maybe did something to him publicly.

JOE WHITE: Yes, jump in.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think I agree with her that he does feel that he is a man of his word. But I do feel, with the word "shamed," that he had to live it to understand it. He and the judge had to experience the same situation to understand what they were trying to do by not giving the land. They didn't understand it until they lived it.

JOE WHITE: So, as the reader, are we to believe that he is a man of his word? Let's hear some more ideas. What do you think, Chris?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I do think that he is a man of his word, and I think that he and the judge had to experience it themselves. However, they are very different experiences. If you are cold and you see the fire, you may feel the warmth of the security and the safety, which we talked about before. But by smelling food, that doesn't satisfy your hunger. There is a difference there. If you're cold, the fire may make you feel warm. But if you are hungry, the smell of food would perhaps make you more hungry and not satisfy the hunger. So I don't know if they necessarily went through the same situation, because one was satisfied for the needs and the other was not.

JOE WHITE: So, in your view, why does Haptom at the end give Arha the land and so on?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: That he had brought so many servants with him and his people that were under him were with him, and so it was not just that he was shamed, but he was shamed with his servants. And he came in with the drums playing and this grand entrance.

JOE WHITE: Where is that? Let's find that. Could you read that?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: "Haptom came with 20 servants, one of whom held a silk umbrella over his head to shade him from the sun, and four drummers played music that signified the great Haptom was here."

JOE WHITE: What do you make of that?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: So he was very proud and he wanted the other wealthy men of the town to know that he had arrived. And not just the other wealthy men at the festival, or feast, but also the fact that his servants were there and he needs to save face.

JOE WHITE: Is that why he gives him the land, to save face?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Partly, yes. And that's why he was shamed into it. He wasn't humbled necessarily in turning it over as much as I've got to do something here.

JOE WHITE: Nancy, you wanted to comment earlier?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My feeling was no, that he was not a man of his word. I felt that he was more concerned with being right, that he win the bet, and that he needed to find some way to invalidate Arha's achievement. And I did think that the only reason that he decided at the end that he would get the land was that he was shamed. He was shamed into doing it because all these other people would think he was not great if he didn't.

JOE WHITE: What made you think he was more concerned with winning the bet rather than being a man of his word?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Because as soon as Arha said to him — he asked him, how did you achieve this, how did you withstand the cold, and he said, I saw my friend's fire in the distance. And he immediately jumped in and said, well, that's it, the bet is off.

JOE WHITE: Let's take a look at that, on page 66. Nancy, let's just do a few lines here. You be Haptom and I'll be Arha. Haptom starts on the top of page 66.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: He says, "`Well, you are a strong fellow,' Haptom said to Arha. `How did you manage to do it?'

JOE WHITE: "I simply watched the light of a fire on a distant hill."

AUDIENCE MEMBER: "What? You watched a fire? Then you lose the bet. You are still my servant and you own no land."

JOE WHITE: "But this fire was not close enough to warm me. It was far across the valley."

AUDIENCE MEMBER: "`I won't give you the land,' Haptom said, `you didn't fulfill the conditions. It was only the fire that saved you.'"

JOE WHITE: What are you making of that part there? What does that say to you?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think he's grabbing at something to make sure that he wins the bet.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: It's his way of using his power.

JOE WHITE: So is he still a man of his word? You were thinking about that earlier; where are you now?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think he is going to make himself a man of his word, because he is going to twist things around to be sure it looks that way.

JOE WHITE: What are you thinking, Elizabeth?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think he sincerely wants others to perceive that he is a man of his word. I think because of his position and because of who he is, it's important for him to have others believe that he is a man of his word. So, one on one, in the privacy between Haptom and Arha, okay, I'm a man of my word, these were the conditions, you disregarded them, you had fire, forget it, it's over.

And then when someone points out to him in a different context, well, this is a comparison with food, it didn't feed you, fire can't warm you if it's on a hill, in order to get everyone to believe that he is a man of his word in that context, okay, you're right, if that's what you all believe, then I want to be a man of my word, it's important for me to be a man of my word, I'm pushed into it, fine, take the land.

JOE WHITE: So if I were to ask you, according to the story, are we to believe that he is a man of his word, you would say...?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: It's hard, because he's a man of his word and his word was you do this, you get the land. And in the end Arha did this and he got the land. So it's kind of a perception thing, you know, he did it in the end, but is he sincerely a man of his word?

JOE WHITE: Should we think that?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: If it was just me, you're him, I'm me, one on one, no, he is not a man — well, I don't know.

JOE WHITE: Karen, you wanted to say something. Go ahead.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think, from the very beginning, he made this bet with him knowing full well that he was never going to fulfill it.

JOE WHITE: What makes you think he was never going to fulfill it?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: So he would win, so he would still be this great man that he is or that he wants people to think that he is, because he could. Because he has power, he has all the land, he has all the food and whatever. He has everything he wants. He is bored. So let's see what I can do to this little servant who means nothing to me.

JOE WHITE: But he gives him the land at the end of the story. What do you make of that?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Because he had to. I agree with them, he was shamed into it. He only did it to make him look like he couldn't leave this whole situation as a bad person. He still has to be the better person. I think we as the reader don't like this man. They don't want us to like this man. But in the end we kind of think, well, he did give in and the servant — you know, good versus evil, good wins all the time, and this is the good that won over the evil.

JOE WHITE: We've got to stop now. Maybe these 3rd graders can help out a little bit, so let's listen to this, and then we'll just talk a little bit about the process and answer some questions.

[VIDEOTAPE IS SHOWN]:

TEACHER: Today we're going to discuss "The Fire on the Mountain." Remember how yesterday, when we were finishing up, we were talking about whether or not Haptom was fair. I want to continue to explore that issue today. I've got a question for you that I want to ask you, because I can't figure it out myself. I'm not sure if, in this story, he is being fair or not. So I'm going to ask you my question, and I'll write it on the board, too. And I would ask you to please write my question down on your piece of paper, and then, before we begin our discussion, I want you to have some time to think about your own best answer, so I think it will help you if everybody has their books open to page 59, where the story starts.

My question goes like this: According to the story, is Haptom Hasei a man of his word?

When you're thinking about your answer to my question, I want you to be looking back through the story to see if you can find anything in the story that would help you answer the question. Also, you know that one of the rules of the discussion is that I only get to ask questions, but that doesn't mean that I'm the only one who can ask questions. You guys can ask each other questions during the discussion. I would like to see you guys talking to each other during discussions. And other than that, let's see what you think.

According to the story, is Haptom Hasei a man of his word? Lauren?

STUDENT: I don't think that Haptom is really a man of his word. Because, in the beginning, on page 59, it says that he was bored.

TEACHER: Can we all look at that on page 59.

STUDENT: It says right here that "Haptom Hasei was so rich that he owned everything that money could buy. And often he was very bored because he had tired of everything he knew."

TEACHER: So what do you make of that? What does his being bored have to do with whether or not he is a man of his word?

STUDENT: Well, if he was bored, he would probably just make somebody do something and wouldn't give it to them.

TEACHER: Do you think that's what he is doing? Jordan?

STUDENT: When he said the fire wasn't close enough to warm me, he must have not heard him.

TEACHER: Where is that? Can you find that, where he says the fire wasn't close enough?

STUDENT: "`What? You watched a fire? Then you lose the bet and you are still my servant and you own no land.' `But this fire was not close enough to warm me. It was far across the valley.'

TEACHER: Read one more paragraph, if you would.

STUDENT: "`I won't give you the land,' Haptom said, `you didn't fulfill the conditions.'"

TEACHER: Jordan, what condition does Haptom think — what is he saying Arha didn't fulfill?

STUDENT: That he had a fire.

TEACHER: When Haptom says "you didn't fulfill the conditions. It was only the fire that saved you," what is Haptom trying to say? Is he being a man of his word right there or not?

STUDENT: I don't think it's fair, because he is not really listening to Arha because it was far across the valley. But I think Arha should — I mean, on a distant hill — he might think like the — Haptom Hasei, he might think like the hill is close to him. But I think he should have — I mean, like a distant hill. I mean, like Arha should have described it more than just "a distant hill."

TEACHER: If Arha should have described it better, the way that the fire was on this distant hill, then is Haptom a man of his word for hearing Arha the way that he understood him? Does that make him a man of his word or not?

STUDENT: Yes, if he described it more he would probably get it.

TEACHER: Hosu, how about you?

STUDENT: I think Haptom is a man of his word. I just think that he wasn't listening to where the fire was when Arha was saying it.

TEACHER: So at the end of the story, when he changes his mind, what changes his mind, Hailu bringing out the food or his understanding more about the fire? How come he changes his mind?

STUDENT: Because Hailu says that the mountain peak knows more than any city judge.

TEACHER: What does that mean? First, where is that? Can you find that place?

STUDENT: Page 67.

TEACHER: Can everyone look at page 67.

STUDENT: "More wisdom grows wild in the hills than in any city judge."

TEACHER: Is that the spot, Hosu? What does that mean, "More wisdom grows wild in the hills than in any city judge."

STUDENT: That means that, about this problem, that it knows more about it than any city judge and it can decide better.

TEACHER: So when the old man tells Arha not to give up hope, why shouldn't Arha give up hope? Here he has gone back to Haptom and Haptom said, no, I won't give you the land. He went to the judge and the judge says you lost. And this guy says, "More wisdom grows wild in the hills than in any city judge." What does he want Arha to do?

STUDENT: He wants him not to give up and to try to reach his goal.

TEACHER: And does his goal mean that he has to convince Haptom that he is wrong or to find another way to get what he thinks he deserves?

STUDENT: Get what he thinks he deserves.

TEACHER: Why does Haptom finally change his mind? Why does he, at the end of the story, finally give Arha that stuff?

STUDENT: I think he just agreed with it just because the judge said that.

TEACHER: Can you find that part where the judge tells him? What page is that on? Danny, do you have that part?

STUDENT: "`Indeed, we can. But smelling is not eating. There is no nourishment in it. And is there warmth in a fire so distant that it can hardly be seen?' Hailu asked. `If Arha was warmed by the fire he watched while standing on Mount Suluta, then you would have been fed by the smells coming from my kitchen.'"

TEACHER: Nialani, can you read the next part there on page 71, the top there?

STUDENT: "The people agreed with him. The judge now saw his mistake, and Haptom was shamed. He thanked Hailu for his advice, and announced that Arha was, then and there, the owner of the land, the house and the cattle."

STUDENT: I think that he is a man of his word because he just made a mistake; he didn't realize that the fire didn't warm him. And then he realized his mistake, because he said that, on 71, that he was shamed.

TEACHER: What does that mean, he was shamed?

STUDENT: That he realized his mistake and he was like said he was sorry to Arha.

STUDENT: I don't think he said that Arha was right and he couldn't feel the fire. And I don't think Haptom really wanted to give him the stuff.

TEACHER: Jaime, what do you think?

STUDENT: At the end he was shamed because he was being — he was a man of his word because he did give him the stuff after he learned his lesson.

STUDENT: On page 66, he says "Arha went to the judge and complained, and the judge sent for Haptom. When Haptom told his story, and the servants said once more that Arha had watched a distant fire across the valley, the judge said, `No." Arha doesn't really tell his side of the story.

TEACHER: Nina?

STUDENT: Doesn't Haptom know that a fire so far away can't warm somebody and just looking is not feeling? So doesn't he know that that was dumb?

TEACHER: What do you think, does he or doesn't he?

STUDENT: And why did Arha say anything?

TEACHER: What do you mean, why did he say anything?

STUDENT: Why did he say that he was looking at a fire? Nothing would have happened if he hadn't said anything.

TEACHER: Why did he say that? Hosu, why did he even say, hey, I looked at a fire?

STUDENT: I think he wanted to be truthful, and his word. He knows that like the truth will always come out at some point.

TEACHER: How does Arha know that, that the truth will always come out at some point?

STUDENT: Because it usually does.

TEACHER: It usually does for Arha?

STUDENT: Well, to other people, too.

[End of videotape]

KAREN SHELDON: Isn't that amazing for 3rd grade. They are such great thinkers.

JOE WHITE: A nice lesson there at the end. I wish we all had learned that.Some notions here just to conclude. When we're thinking about a shared inquiry discussion, I have that word "genuine," meaning that the question that is given to the students to think about, the question I gave you, is one for which there is a genuine puzzlement on my part. If I know the answer to the question, I cannot lead this discussion well because I will try to get you to say what's on my mind. And so I must find a question over which I have some really genuine curiosity. It makes it fun to lead the discussion and it makes it more interesting and it will really help the students think more critically.

It is reflective. Part of the way we get this reflective is by asking students to write down their answer before the discussion. It's that notion that we write to think sometimes. And we didn't take the time with you, but then we ask people to go back and take a look at the original answer. In a way, what the discussion is then is a means to an end. It's not just the end in itself. The means is developing a more reflective position on the question. That's why we call it building your answer.

And so pre-writing and post-writing, pre-writing before the discussion and post-writing after the discussion, you would see people using the discussion and the points raised and recognizing the need to clarify ideas, a need to address different notions now that had not occurred to you perhaps before the discussion. But the discussion says, hey, I need to look at this.

It is respectful in many ways, but then the sense that what is being respected I think is the right of the participant to construct an answer as opposed to having one imposed upon them or trying to find out what's on my mind. I think that's important and I think you want that as a participant. You probably felt that. You wouldn't want somebody saying, well, you're wrong and you're right. You want that right to think this thing through.

It's rigorous in that you notice the kids had their noses in the text. And that is really important. If I go into a classroom and I see people discussing a story, and the books are closed, I am going to conclude it's not a shared inquiry discussion. Because it is going to lack that element of rigor that's necessary if we are going to really promote that goal of critical thinking. So these discussions can be lively, but liveliness is not the goal as much as rigor.

It is collaborative in the sense of the way you were collaborating, and the students started to spontaneously collaborate there at the end, when they come up with disagreements and agreements or they see another piece of the story or a passage they want to bring in. It's wonderful when that happens spontaneously.

At first you invite people to collaborate by asking them to talk about what other people say and so on, but kids can pick this up. The rewarding part, you remember my analogy about a trial, this is where this really breaks down, because the reward is not coming up. And Dan said this earlier, we don't ask for a vote at the end of this thing. We are not looking for consensus. Unlike a jury that's trying to get a unanimous decision, that is not what we are about. The reward is in that sense of having built a more thoughtful answer and having thought more deeply about the story.

I thank you for your participation. And could we have a hand for the inside group, the volunteers. They did a great job.

JOE WHITE: And Dan and Karen and I are certainly here and we are willing to take any of your questions.

DAN WALL: Might I quickly introduce, this is Tom Kirschner, who is Director of our Eastern Division. He is eyeballing those of you in this circle, because I am going to keep my word, and those of you who have participated in the inner circle, Tom will be happy to provide you with the book of your choice downstairs. Now, questions from you?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We use literature circles. That has been the big buzz word up where we are. I see a lot of similarities and a lot of differences. I am curious, you talked about empowering learners — I can't quote it directly — but is there a point that Junior Great Books addresses a student becoming the leader of the circle?

JOE WHITE: I think with older students. In fact, we are training some high school students particularly to be trainers as part of their volunteer activities. I think that is kind of a neat thing. With older students, I think it is something you could do. But I think it is a skill that needs a lot of work and it takes a lot of time. Certainly having the students come up with their own questions, to begin to identify the different kinds of questions, identifying and using language, as an assignment, to write down interpretive questions, that can be very helpful. So I think you could. I think I would be careful with it, though, until I had done some real training and spent some time on it.

KAREN SHELDON: I think also, to that end, in the discussion, in the course of the discussion, the kids will piggy-back on each other's answers and they will develop their own questions. And so you can usually see leadership skills by the level of the questioning that the kids ask. But still, as a leader, I like to make sure that things are going smoothly, that they are looking back in the story to support their opinions, and just to kind of keep it focused.

Because oftentimes, if you let the kids take charge, they go off on their own thing and they start talking about movies, and I remember watching TV and going to the party and blah, blah, blah, whereas this is a more direct discussion, with evidence from the text, and it keeps it focused. And that's the point. Whereas other discussions that are not shared inquiry per se, then teachers giving that responsibility to the students is appropriate.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: A classroom question. Is part of the program and the training for the students, do they get the skills to ask the questions, or is it something that they just pick up with guidance from the instructor? Because the way they pointed to, well, on page 68, when they said..., and then they read the passage, I mean that's remarkable. That's what you go for with every subject, to carry over for everything. But that's a skill that they need to know. So is it part of the program or is that something that the group leader or the teacher sort of just guides them and eventually they pick it up? And how long does it take to pick it up?

KAREN SHELDON: I think as a community of learners you establish these norms where you agree to disagree and things like that, but the respect issue is always there.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: What about the specifics, like, on page 71, yes?

JOE WHITE: Our training isn't directed toward the students. They are not included. But part of the training is to say to the teachers to take some of the easier stories to start off with, and work with them and explain to them what you're doing, and clarify the process along the way and begin to talk about the types of questions you are going to ask, and encourage them to ask each other questions.

And it doesn't take long before they begin to recognize, oh, I had the feeling and I bet you had this feeling, oh, he is going to ask me why I think so, and what in the story made me think that? And pretty soon kids get on to that. I have noticed that even by the end of a discussion the students have got their books open and they have kind of picked up on it.

KAREN SHELDON: And kids will ask, well, where did you see that? I missed that. Where in the story? And I will say, well, let's all look back. And could you find it for me, Elizabeth? Where was that that you were looking in the story? And that, again, brings everyone into a community of learners and it happens nicely.

DAN WALL: Our monitor has called attention to the fact that 10 o'clock has arrived and the time for us to end the session is here. I see several of you still have questions. I want to assure you that Joe, Karen, Tom, and I will stay here and we will be glad to address any questions you have. Thank you for coming.