Question-Answer Relations! uestion-Answer Relationship is often referred to as QAR. QAR has a variety of adaptations that can be used to assist readers and learners to delve into the deeper meaning of text and critical topies. Teachers set this up in numerous ways. Charts, Tcharts, Venn diagrams, writing responses, and discussion circles can all be used. QAR question types follow the trajectory of On, Between, and Beyond the Lines, They move from factual questions to interpretive ones to evaluative queries. Raphael (1986) divides questions into four types: Right There questions, Think and Search questions, Author and Me questions, and On My Own questions, RIGHT THERE: These questions are factual, requiring students to find the spot in the text where the question is answered. You can literally find the answers “right there” in the text. THINK AND SEARCH: ‘These questions are interpretive — they require the reader to identify various spots in a text where information related to the question is stated. The reader must “search” for the various details and “think” about the nature of the connection between the details. If the details are close together, the question is easier to answer and constitutes a “simple implied relationship” question. If there are many details, and they are less obviously related, then the question can be considered a “complex implied relationship.” AUTHOR AND ME: ‘These questions require the readers to bring their own knowledge to bear on a text. ‘Such questions might require readers to fill in gaps in the text by providing prior knowledge and information from their own lives that would reasonably fit, or to provide an elaboration and extension of the text that is based on their experience. Students must be able to bring knowledge from their personal life, prior reading, or the world in combination with the text to answer this question type. ‘ON MY OWN: These questions do not require textual information from the specific reading, though having read the text might have stimulated the question or assisted in some way in addressing it. Inquiry questions are often questions of this type; for instance, you can tentatively answer the question of “What makes a speech powerful?” or “What makes # good relationship?” without having completed a particular reading, although readings might help you answer it. These questions are evaluative or applicative: afiswers that typically stake a claim about the world or potential actions that could be taken.MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY Iter aan a Ts enema a d in the prison of po These powerful words came from on 87 ee fone Se Coe erect oe a Cee iy RIGHT THERE: CR eee ne aa emer Dee ce age ee ca Cen en eer eae Cee eee ce eee Mn eee cae Se Cee ee by the actions of human beings.” To Mandela, having o decent oe acne ea Te ea ee (Gor The 10 os nto Spbeces in Wes Hon 80827) Why did Mandela tell the crowds that he really shouldn’t be there? THINK AND SEARCH: Why was Mandela asked to give a speech by the Cainpaign to Make Poverty History? AUTHOR AND ME: Ifyou were Nelson Mandela, what might you have ‘ON MY OWN: id in the speech? If your country were ever taken over by an authority you disagreed with, what would you do? What would you be uncompromising about?QARs in Science QAR works very well to promote expertise in reading because good res and inquirers must address all question types to truly and deeply understand. Likewise, QARs replicate what content area experts do to understand a text or a data set, For example, in a brainstorming session, science teachers from our national demo site discussed how the QAR scheme can engage students in the kinds of thinking and inquiry valued in science (Wilhelm, 2007): RIGHT THERE: Promote careful observation and consider direct evidence. THINK AND SEARCH: Promote seeing relationships among data and the seeing of patterns across data sets. Promote the making of reasonable inferences and hypotheses, and ‘a consideration of indirect evidence to make predictions, and to theorize. Encourages students to study data to see patterns and to make reasonable {inferences based on data patterns, AUTHOR AND ME: Promote creating mental models and extending these for use in altered contexts. Promote personal innovation and engagement with scientific ideas and process 1s it leads to experimentation, intervention, and the creation of new data to add to what is already established, or to confirm or disconfirm hypotheses. Encourage critical inquiry and the active ageney of students to become practitioners as they converse with existing data and add to existing data sets. ON MY OWN: Promote the application of scientific concepts and processes, making connections between scientific learning and real-world issues and problems. Promote testing generalizations and being a scientific thinker in the world, Sew eet eT Cee een ean Mv ence Pee ean peo Erne a ueeaeQARs in Math RIGHT THERE: Establish the facts and understand the details from the data/text. Identify ‘unnecessary information/distractors. THINK AND SEARCH: Discern patterns and relationships in the data; infer proper operations necessary to solve the problem. AUTHOR AND ME Consider how to find missing information that might be helpful. Identify a meaningful context in which solving this kind of problem would be useful in your life, Identify and apply proper operations. Consider alternative operations and ways of solving the problem, as well as the costs and benefits, and efficiencies and. inefficiencies of each. Check work. Evaluate effectiveness of your procedures. Hypothesize and articulate general principles. Test hypotheses. Decision and meaning making by the student is foregrounded. ‘ON MY OWN: Consider real-world applications of general principles and problem-solving procedures. Identify situations in which concepts and strategies can be used. Think like a mathematician as you go through your daily life. 103