1. Who seems to be the main audience? (To whom is the author speaking?)
2. What is the first thing that jumps out at me? Why?
3. What's the next thing I notice? Are these two things connected? How? Do they seem to be saying different things?
4. What are the central ideas? What is a summary of the text based on everything we’ve learned from the text so far? What is the article starting to be about?
5. What seems important here? Why?
6. What does the text explicitly say? (Put aside prior knowledge, inference, etc.) What am I actually reading? What are the ideas/facts so far? Prompt students to go back into the text; SAY: “It’s harder than you think to remember the key ideas. Reread.”
7. Is the central idea still central or is the article starting to be about something else? If so, what?
8. What interactions can I see? How are people/events/ideas connected?
9. What does the author assume I already know about while I am reading? (Critical for helping students to guide their own process of going deeper into learning process to uncover more.)
10. Is there anything that could have been explained more thoroughly for greater clarity? Are there things the author expected me to already know? What else do I need to know about in order to understand better?
11. What does the author mean by ______? What exact words lead me to this meaning?
12. Is the author trying to convince me of something? What? How do I know?
13. Is there something missing from this passage that I expected to find? Why might the author have left this out?
14. Is there a message or main idea after reading the whole piece? What in the text led me to this conclusion?