While there are a variety of ways to implement inquiry into any class, there are generally two ways to engage students in this learning method:
- Closed-ended (also known as Socratic Questioning): This type of inquiry leads students to predetermined outcomes. Usually, the instructor provides the questions and students then come to “discover” the answer after completing the assigned work. Science labs and Web Quests usually fall under this category.
- Open-ended: In this approach, students develop their own questions and methods for answering those questions based on the individual’s interests. There are no predetermined answers and there is no telling where the students will go with their research. As a result, students are often required to develop and present a culminating project to show what they learned.
Both of these approaches can be effective means of activating inquiry; however, the latter, (open ended) seems to be favored by basic writing instructors. Here is what some of the research experts had to say:
- Thom Hawkins (Group Inquiry Techniques for Teaching Writing. NCTE, 1976): “Inquiry questions should not be of the “closed ended” variety… because it leads students to believe that the instructor knows the answer to the questions” (4).
- Bruce Ballenger (The Curious Writer. Pearson/Longman, 2005): “[I]n an inquiry-based approach to writing, you’ll choose a writing topic that raises questions about how you think or feel over one that you have all figured out. Almost any topic can raise interesting questions. There are no boring questions, only uninteresting questions” (14).
- Jeff Wilhelm (Engaging Readers and Writers with Inquiry. Scholastic, 2007): “Topical coverage does not allow student to do identity work—they are doing someone else’s work—that of the teacher, textbook writer or testing company. But topical research and critical inquiry allow them to deal with the same material in a way that helps them to do their own work and stake their identity because they are engaged in staking their own claims on a problem that matters to them [. . .]” (31).
- Nancy V. Wood (“College Reading Instruction as Reflected by Current Reading Textbooks.”): “The transfer of learning from one class to another, a difficult accomplishment at any educational level, becomes easier when reading assignments are open-ended and encourage application” (41–42).
