Don't Just Learn Words, Meet Them

By Doug Buehl,
Madison East High School teacher
Member, Wisconsin State Reading Association

December 2000

Consider the recent election barrage of debates, press interactions, talk show appearances, and public forums. One candidate after another, responding to a gamut of questions put to them by reporters, media hosts, panels of experts, or even fellow citizens. But probably not by you. As you watched these events, you may have thought to yourself, "I wish I were interviewing those candidates. I know what questions I would ask so they reveal themselves, so they represent who they really are."

Ostensibly, that is what an interview ought to accomplish. By asking a series of well-chosen questions, an interviewer can gain valuable insight into who a person is, what that person believes, what he or she might do. It is a matter of asking the right questions.

The interview technique can also be applied to classroom situations. Pavlik (2000) recommends using the Vocabulary Interview to help students develop meaningful understandings of important curricular concepts.

The Strategy
The Vocabulary Interview engages students in posing questions to clarify, expand, and explore key ideas. It involves the following steps:

Step 1: To initiate the practice of asking revealing questions, model the process with a version of the old game "20 Questions." Select a relevant fact or detail from a unit of study and solicit questions from students that will lead them toward identifying that piece of information. Choose a more concrete item, like a person, an event, a tangible "thing."

For example, in a biology class, you might decide upon a chloroplast. Introduce yourself by saying, "I am necessary to the growth of green plants. Who am I?" Students will soon discover that starting with general questions gains them more information than specific questions, which can be hit or miss. Hence, "Are you part of a plant?" helps students narrow the range of possibilities much more than, "Are you the sun?" which would only eliminate one of many possible correct answers.

Step 2: Students are now ready to apply this questioning technique to more abstract information, such as key concepts and vocabulary. In this phase, however, students are informed of the identity of whom they are interviewing. In this case, they use the interview strategy to find out more about this featured concept.

As students become familiar with this technique, they will benefit from prompts that can guide their questioning. Provide them with a partial list of potential questions and recruit individual students to pose them to you. For example, in a world history class, have students interview you as "revolution" by starting with questions such as the following:

• Where were you born? When?
• Where do you come from?
• How would we be able to recognize you?
• How do you choose where to appear?
• What must you have to come alive?
• Why are you needed?
• What was one of your best days?
• In what ways are you accepted or controversial? Why?
• What actions are associated with you?
• Where do you exist today?
• Who are some of your brothers and sisters?

Your answers might be, "I was born in dissatisfaction, in times before recorded history. I come from desires to alter the balance of power in society. You would recognize me in social ferment, in increasing frustration and discontent. Some of my best days were America in the 1770s, France in the 1790s, Russia in the 1900s, Iran in the 1970s. My younger siblings are protest, public unrest, civil disobedience, terrorism, and revolt. Sometimes I am violent, but not everyone knows me this way. My enemy is the status quo, and I have no faith in the ballot box."

Students should be encouraged to interject their own questions as the interview unfolds. Certain queries allow students to playfully assume the role of interviewer and provide you with an opportunity for further elaboration. For example: "What is your favorite movie? What music do you like and why? Who are your heroes? What was your greatest failure?"

As you supply answers to their questions, you will be emphasizing the development of "revolution" as a far-reaching concept. Also, students will enjoy the anthropomorphic nature of this activity, as they begin to make meaningful connections between a key concept and broader ideas in the curriculum as well as to their own experiences.

Step 3: With experience, students can be expected to develop their own interviews of key content vocabulary. Select a concept (or several to choose from) and have students work with partners, one role-playing the concept and the other generating interview questions. First, both students re-read text materials to re-acquaint themselves with the concept. The interviewer looks for ideas for promising questions, and the role player reinforces main ideas about the concept. Certain generic questions, such as those listed above, can be supplied to jump-start the process, but students should be expected to customize this process with additional questions of their own devising.

Then they conduct the interview, which can include written responses as well as oral interactions. Have students keep track of the questions that "stump" the role player. These questions are then aired during a general debriefing of the role with the entire class, and students postulate how these tough questions might be answered by the role.

As students become practiced with this interview strategy, emphasize that they should ask questions as if they were a party host trying to find out more about a guest. These natural questions can help them flesh out a more expansive sense of who the "guest" is and help them become acquainted with this new visitor.

Advantages
The Vocabulary Interview stimulates a much deeper and richer comprehension of essential curricular concepts. In addition:

• Students come to realize that concepts need to be elaborated beyond basic definitions to be truly understandable.
• Students personalize their learning of material in a motivational and interactive context.
• Students adopt a questioning frame of mind, which causes them to think about key ideas rather than merely attempting to memorize information.
• Key terms and vocabulary in any content discipline can be the subject of a Vocabulary Interview.

Further Resources:
Pavlik. (2000)
Questions to Host Learning.
Paper presented at the Madison Metropolitan Schools Literacy Institute, June 9, Madison, WI.

Posted April 16, 2001