ENGAGE: 
Text Dependent Questioning

Select a text that makes claims supported with evidence. 

Review Educator Resource: Progression of Text-Dependent Questions before the overview with students and identify which category of questions students will be using for the text. 

Create sample questions for the text based on the categories for which students will be crafting questions.

Assign students into reading pairs, who will work together to deconstruct the text and craft questions for another reading pair to answer and discuss. • Have each student individually read the text for the gist. 

Assign each reading pair two or three categories of questions to craft for a corresponding reading team. Each group can be assigned the same categories, or groups can be assigned different categories. 

Chunk the text with the class so that each reading group crafts questions for specific areas of the text. 

Model the process of creating a question with the first chunk of the text, ensuring that students understand why that question was crafted. 

For the following chunk of text, have student pairs create a question for one of the categories that they have been assigned. In addition to creating the question, each group should prepare both a direct answer for that question and the rationale for why they created that question. 

Select a few groups to share their question, answer, and rationale with the class. If the class is ready to move forward, release the groups to complete the questions for the text. 

Have student pairs write their questions on sticky notes and label the note with the corresponding paragraph number. 

After each pair of students has completed their sets of questions, they will trade their sticky notes with another group. 

Each pair will read the text a final time. Before answering the other pair’s questions, they will identify and write down on the sticky note what category of question they are answering. 

Next, they will answer the other pair’s sticky-note questions by writing in the margins of their text. 

Before students move on to an extending activity, have each group share the most effective question that was posed for them and why they felt that question was the best.

As students progress in their mastery of the text-dependent questions, have them create an entire series of questions ranging in focus from “general understanding” to “opinions, arguments, and intertextual connections.”