Inquiry for Elementary - Rebel Girls Rule!

Inquiry in elementary school? Let's test it out.

Step 1 of planning inquiry is to inspect - SPARK INTEREST!
I learned as a museum educator that it's often the regular every day items that future generations will most inquire about. 
We wonder about a sad iron, a snood or a horseshoe but 150 years ago no one wondered about them at all.

My inquiry item: postcards from the "Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls" series.

I asked my rebel girl 4th grader which of the 5 categories were most interesting: 

• Warriors
• Creators
• Champions
• Pioneers
• ​Leaders

Creators most sparked her interest.
I spread out the 8 cards and then I asked open-ended questions:
What do you notice?
What did the people on the cards have in common?
Which two would you like to ask more questions about?

Inquiry is about questions:
Step 2: Investigate - Scaffold knowledge for students so they can ask their own questions

Just like any good detective, an inquiring 4th grader needs to get the big picture and then generate new questions.

We read the brief bio on the back of two post cards: Maria Callas and Millo Castro Zaldarriaga.

Millo was definitely the winner. She created Cuba's first all-girl band and played the drums!

What 3 questions would you ask about Millo?

​1. How did she keep herself from getting discouraged?
2. How did she prove herself to the haters?
3. What does her music sound like?

Step 3: Interrogate-Guide students to answer their supporting questions

Before jumping into any research, we talked about how we would like to tell other people about Millo's bravery.
Would a topic paragraph really help people experience her music?
An interview might be a good idea. Questions are good?
How would anyone hear the interview?

We settled on creating a news story about Millo for the radio or TV.

Now we had a purpose for our research and we knew that we should be looking for great sounds for our radio news story.

Step 4: Interpret- Empower students to trust their ideas and share what they learned.
Evaluate information - We jumped to youtube and found two songs. Then we tried Spotify but had not luck.
Synthesize evidence - Our next step would be to learn more about Millo's life. We could read the book Drum Dream Girl by Margarita Engle and in fact we found a website full of sources
Analyze - The analysis comes in answering the supporting questions.
Draw Conclusions - When that evidence is connected to our big question we can draw a conclusion.
Share in a meaningful way - Finally we can record our radio news story.

My conclusion is that inquiry is possible for elementary and it just may be the key to keeping curiosity-driven learning alive.