This entry is a reflection on my experience with completing Assignment 2. When I started Assignment 2, I was trying to decide which inquiry model to use for my final assignment—either the BCTLA Points of Inquiry (which I have used before) or the Alberta Learning Focus on Inquiry (which I have not).

The task in Assignment 2 was to research and select ten resources a TL could use to support inquiry learning. In terms of my inquiry project, this resource selection task would either be Stage 2 (Investigate) in the Points of Inquiry Model, or it would be Stages 2 and 3 in Focus on Inquiry (Retrieve and Process, respectively).

The resources I selected are intended to support the different stages of an inquiry process for the Grade 8-10 Language Arts project. Because I was interested to learn more about the Focus on Inquiry (2004) model before actually using it for a project, it was this model I used when selecting the resources. As a result of this experience, I decided that both models have essential features that the other lacks, and instead of choosing between them, I would combine the best features of each.

There are six stages in the Focus on Inquiry model:

1. Planning
2. Retrieving
3. Processing
4. Creating
5. Sharing
6. Evaluating

Of these, the two that gave me pause in this assignment were Planning and Processing.

First glitch: Planning

Ironically, this planning stage was one of the main reasons for my interest in this model, because the checklist for planning includes:

• Identifying a topic area for inquiry
• Identifying possible information sources
• Identifying audience and presentation format
• Establishing evaluation criteria
• Outline a plan for inquiry

I am especially interested in the last three items, which encourage students to be goal-oriented in their thinking from the start: who is the intended audience, what format will you use to deliver the information, how will you know you have succeeded, and how will you move forward on the project?

So far, so good. The glitch in this stage is that the onus for establishing evaluation criteria falls at least as much on the teacher as it does on the student. In fact, the evaluation criteria create the framework for the entire project. What this means is that before getting students started on Stage 1 of this inquiry model, the teachers’ plan will already need to be in place. This didn’t come as a complete surprise: ever since reading about backwards course design in Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design (2005) several years ago, I have wanted to apply these principles to instructional design. And these principles have also been incorporated into the new BC Education curriculum, under the Core Competencies, which encourage teachers to ask “What should students Know, Do and Understand?” when they have completed a given task (BC Ministry of Education, 2017). This inquiry project, and this inquiry model in particular, seemed like the opportunity to practice, so I did.

It was hard work. Of course, who wouldn’t want to avoid the common curriculum design pitfall of “activity-oriented teaching in which no clear priorities and purposes are apparent” (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005)? But it meant I needed to design the entire unit in order to proceed with selecting a resource for “establishing evaluation criteria.” This is different than making a generic, one-size-fits-all resource list: including assessment criteria seems to mean that the resources will have to be customized for the specific project. If so, using this inquiry model, and this instructional design method, is more time-consuming than going with the standard model of ‘this is how we always do it.’ It isn’t clear to me where teachers will find the time to do this kind of planning. Maybe the bulk of it will fall to the TL? Maybe with practice, some patterns emerge for given types of projects?

Despite these concerns, I was pleased (but surprised) by the criteria sheet I eventually came up with. By designing “with the end in mind” (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005), I arrived at a solution which doesn’t resemble the typical end-of-unit English literature assessment I am familiar with, but which turned out to be an accurate reflection of what I think students should be able to understand and do, given what they have been learning in class about how stories work.

Second glitch: Processing

Yet another of the features I like about the Focus on Inquiry model is that it separates the research stage into two—retrieving information, and processing it. I recognise that in practice there will be lots of overlap between these stages, but I think that presenting them as separate processes helps students understand the two-sided nature of research—retrieval means locating, evaluating and selecting resources; processing means fine-tuning your focus question, and then organising the selected material into some kind of notes you can later use to create your project.

I like the separation of these two functions, since it breaks the research process up and slows it down. I think it might offer students a clearer guide to what they’re supposed to be doing for each stage. But on the other hand, and this is where the glitch comes in, it is only when they get to ‘Processing’ that there is any mention of finding a focus for inquiry in this model. This seems a bit late in the project. The BCTLA Points of Inquiry (2010) model, while it doesn’t include the anticipatory planning stage, does have ‘Connect and Wonder’ as Stage 1. This encourages students right from the start to access their prior knowledge, connect it to what they are trying to learn now, and to begin their inquiry by asking themselves what they want to learn next.

Encouraging spontaneous connection and imaginative prospection seems like an important way to capture student interest; on the other hand, planning and anticipating outcomes also seem important. On yet a third hand, projects become overwhelming and complicated when there are too many stages involved.

So on reflection, I’m thinking that the ‘Connect and Wonder’ stage should happen in the classroom before students come to the library to start working on the projects. And in a collaboratively-planned unit such as this one is intended to be, it might work better if the Planning stage was presented in the classroom as well. Given that the unit was jointly planned by the teacher and the TL in advance, I can’t see a reason why either of these first stages need to happen in the library, although the TL can offer resources and support for both stages. But if these two stages were covered in the classroom, then students would start their library work with ‘Retrieving’ information. And the ‘Processing’ stage would then be an opportunity to revisit and fine-tune their focus of inquiry, rather than their first consideration of it. So my inquiry stages will be:

1. Connect and wonder (in classroom)
2. Plan (in classroom)
3. Investigate (in library)
   1. Retrieve
   2. Process
4. Create (library/ classroom)
5. Share (library/classroom)
6. Reflect (library/classroom)

As a further reflection on my experience with the Processing stage, while doing the research and selection of resources for Assignment 2, I did find myself spontaneously fine-tuning my inquiry question, exactly as the Focus on Inquiry model proposes should happen. In the planning stage, I had tentatively identified the inquiry question as “What does a hero mean to you?” but in the course of completing Assignment 2, I revised it to say “Demonstrate what you have learned about how stories work, and what they tell us about the people who created them.” I am now thinking that this assignment will be based on an examination of literature from different genres, different historical periods, and different cultures. It will still include consideration of what the hero of a given work might reveal about the values of the culture where he or she was created, but it will not be limited to just the hero—all aspects of the story reflect the culture, and sometimes those other aspects can be just as revealing of values, if not more so. This is a much clearer, more specific focus, and it offers lots of scope for further development on many levels.

Third glitch: Surprise Bonus Glitch

But this brings me to an unexpected glitch I encountered in selecting resources to support this project: as Stripling (2003) points out in her discussion of the different types of disciplinary focus, Language Arts projects are usually based on interpreting and evaluating primary sources—novels and other literary works. They don’t require the secondary resources that would typically be used for science or social studies projects. Instead, students are asked to perform their analyses of texts based on criteria they have learned in class—the parts of a story, figures of speech, genres of text, how to write various types of essay. What I found when I went to design the assessment criteria for this project is that while analysis and interpretation of texts does call on some of the higher-level thinking skills that we want students to develop, employing these skills does not lead to the same kind of focus question students might ask when investigating an environmental issue or a question of social organization and practice.

This presents a problem for teachers of Language Arts and English literature, who are expected under the new curriculum guidelines to promote self-directed learning projects for their students as are all other disciplines. And it presents a problem for TLs who are trying to support Language Arts teachers with resources. But this absence of inquiry-questions-needing-secondary-resources does not mean that Language Arts projects should focus, as Stripling (2003) suggests, on non-fiction genres taught in collaboration with teachers from other disciplines, or alternatively, that they should be “opened to student choice of any subject that intrigues them” (P 28)—this would more closely resemble Wiggins and McTighe’s critique of “activity-oriented teaching in which no clear priorities and purposes are apparent” (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005). And it does not mean there is no role for the library in supporting Language Arts projects.

It does mean that developing an inquiry approach will require some revised thinking about the role and purpose of Language Arts instruction though. This is the conclusion I was led to by applying Wiggins and McTighe’s backwards design principles and Bloom’s Taxonomy. In the Taxonomy, ‘create’ is the highest-level mode for demonstrating learning. Asking students to ‘analyze’ and ‘evaluate’ should only prepare them for the actual work of creating a product that reflects all their prior learning.

For some reason Language Arts students are not usually expected to demonstrate their learning about literature by creating their own stories, although when you think about it, you might wonder why not. Maybe it’s because one of the functions of instruction in Language Arts has always been to develop analytical skills, and for this purpose the student is expected to adopt the stance of literary critic, not creative writer (Eagleton, 2008). Or alternatively, it could be that in times gone by (hopefully they have gone by), it was not as easy for students to create narrative responses to novel studies, so teachers instead fell back on having them become practising literary critics rather than artists, creators, and storytellers in their own right. And yet, in the 21^st Century, these are increasingly valued skills, and they are in reach of all students.

Of course Language Arts courses need to teach the skills of analysis and evaluation, but as the new curriculum mandates, and as Bloom’s revised taxonomy indicates, these skills are subordinate to the highest-order thinking: creative expression that integrates all the levels of thinking that precede it. With the abundance of new technologies for telling stories, and with the expectation that schools in general and libraries in particular will foster multi-modal literacy, there is no reason why students should not now become storytellers. The inquiry project I am proposing for this course would easily fit into the curriculum of most Language Arts teachers as a stand-alone novel study unit. But it could just as easily be the focus of a year-long investigation into some aspect or other of telling stories—a systematic, critical and comparative investigation. And this is where TLs play a role in Language Arts inquiry projects: providing instruction in the skills of self-directed learning and the use of technologies (digital and analogue) to help students make the results of all that learning about stories visible. In the end, I do not agree with Stripling’s (2003) view that the focus of inquiry in Language Arts should be on interdisciplinary non-fiction. In fact I think that the focus should be on the study of how stories of all different kinds are put together, for the purpose of learning to make them yourself. When seen in that light the study of Language Arts turns out to be an applied skill, and perfectly suited to inquiry-based learning after all.

Works Cited

Alberta Learning. (2004). Focus on Inquiry. Edmonton, AB: Alberta Learning.

BC Ministry of Education Curriculum Guide: https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/

Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/

Ekdahl, M., Farquharson, M., Robinson, J. & Turner, L. (2010). Points of Inquiry: A Framework For Information Literacy and The 21st Century Learner. Vancouver, BC: BC Teacher Librarians’ Association (BCTLA) and BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF).

Stripling, B. K. (2003). Inquiry-based learning. In Curriculum Connections through the Library. Eds. B. K. Stripling & S. Hughes-Hassell. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Appendix. Understanding by Design (Expanded 2nd edition). 327-332. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. (Note: this link is for the appendix “Understanding by Design Framework” which is available online as a PDF. The entire book is available for purchase here: https://www.amazon.ca/Understanding-Design