Hi everyone! Questioning the Author, (or QtA), is about getting students to think more critically. This reading strategy focuses on creating meaning in the text students read by asking questions about the author. These questions include:
- What is the author’s purpose with this text?
- Is there a link between what the author said here and what they said before
- What is the author really trying to say?
Essentially, open ended questions about the author and their purpose with sections of the text, or even the text as a whole, are asked and discussed as a class to gain a deeper meaning about the text. Additionally, and equally as important to fostering critical thinking, students also learn that authors can make mistakes with this method. With the help of critical thinking, they do not take the author’s text at face value and can acknowledge the fallibility of an author’s work. This is important because students can get discouraged if they do not understand a text and question their own intelligence, but it could be because the author made an error, such as structurally in the text, that causes the confusion. For more information on this fantastic strategy, have a look at my rundown video below!