Process

Page for Inquiry Project

Stage
Immerse

Small-Group Inquiry Model For Inquiry Project

Teacher Role

Invite curiosity, build background,

surround with materials, modeling,
thinking-aloud

After reciting the Pledge of

Allegiance during the morning
meeting, ask students if they know
why we face the flag and say the
pledge every morning. This will
activate background knowledge.
Encourage students to ask their
own questions about the Pledge of
Allegiance and the flag, too. Write
down students prior knowledge
on a chart.
Introduce the task to the students.
Tell them that throughout this
project they will all be researching
this topic and making a book to
give to new students.
Strategy: Interactive Read Aloud
F is for Flag by Wendy Cheyette
Lewison
This strategy and book will
introduce students to the topic. It
will help students begin to build
background knowledge and
organize that information. The
book will be read aloud. During the
first few pages of the book, pause
to model new thinking and

Student Role

Students will engage in group

discussion with their classmates
and add to their background
knowledge.

learning about flags by drawing or

writing on a small whiteboard.
After students have seen this
modeled, continue to pause
frequently so students can turn
and talk to their elbow partners
and share new and interesting
learning. Then students can share
with the class. This will help
students practice interacting with
the text and with one another to
deepen their understanding.
Differentiation for struggling
students and ELLs:
Students can draw pictures and
orally discuss their learning
(Mapping a Route Towards
Differentiated Instruction,
Tomlinson, 1999).
There will also be frequent
stopping points (Hoyt, Ch6).
Display all of the resources for this
project around the room. Set aside
5-10 minutes for students to look
at the different books and website
resources.
Tell students that they will be
researching four different aspects
of the flag: the history of the flag,
the Pledge of Allegiance, the parts
of the flag, and flag etiquette.

Students will jot ideas down on

their own small whiteboards to
share with their elbow partners
and the whole class.

Students will browse the materials

to gain areas of interest.

Students will decide their top three

areas of interest.

Investigate

Develop questions, search for information,

discover answers, modeling strategies,
guide discussions, conferring

Gather students choices to assign

groups.
Assign students to groups. Refer
back to some of the questions and
background knowledge from the
beginning of the project and
compare that with the
requirements of the task.
Help students find resources
pertinent to their topic both as a
class and in small groups. Preview
all of the books and show students
how to navigate the websites
provideespecially PebbleGo.
Conference with groups during this
time to help them get started.
Strategy: Read, Remember,
Represent, Retell
Flag Company Field Trip on PBS
Learning Media
After students have worked with
small groups, bring them back
together for a strategy. Instead of
read, remember, represent, retell,
students will watch, remember,
represent, and retell. This video
has a lot of great information
about the flag so the strategy will
help students remember and
comprehend the things they are
learning. Model with the first few

Students will work in their small

groups to think about background
information that they already have
and what they still need to learn
about their assigned topic.

Coalesce
Intensify research, synthesize information,

modeling organization and evaluating
sources, identify key ideas, conferring

minutes of the video. Watch it as a

class, think aloud about what you
remember and draw a sketch.
Then retell what was learned to
the class using the sketch.
Divide the rest of the video up into
two or three small chunks and
have students watch, remember,
represent, and retell to the person
sitting next to them.
Differentiation for struggling
students and ELLs:
Students will be working in pairs
and small groups at this time and
therefore exposed to more
language. They will be able to tell
one another what they think (Hoyt,
Ch 6).

Strategy: Wall Stories

The Pledge of Allegiance by Tyler
Monroe and The American Flag by
Tyler Monroe
Introduce these simple and
informational books to students
and read them both aloud. While
reading, pause periodically to

Students will watch the video
keeping their assigned topic in
mind, remember what they
learned, sketch it, and retell the
information to their partner.










Students will begin organizing the
information found in the provided
resources.
Students will continue organizing
their information and planning
their page for the task.

check for comprehension. After

the books have been read, present
two different sentence structures
for students to use:
The American Flag represents
_______.
The Pledge of Allegiance is a(n)
_______.
Model sentences for students
before having them write their
own. This will model how to write
information for their page of the
book. Make the pages into a book
(teach some text features at this
time, too!) and read it as a class.
Students can share their individual
pages.
Differentiation for struggling
students and ELLs:
Creating a wall story about the
American flag and the Pledge of
Allegiance and reading it with the
class often will help struggling
learners grasp the material (Hoyt,
Ch 6).
Conference with groups to check
their progress.

Go Public

As students are finishing, schedule

Students will choose a sentence

and fill in the blank. They will draw
a picture to go with their sentence.






Students will help read the finished
book.

Prepare any questions about

research and the project.
Work with their group to finish
their page.

Share learning, demonstrate learning in a

variety of ways, understand, reflect,
create new questions

times for them to share with the

class.
Remind students of good listening
skills.
After students share, ask if they
have more questions about that
topic.








Take each of the groups pages and
make them into a book. Read the
book as a class.
See if the principal can visit so
students can show their final
product!

Groups will present their book

pages and share the information
they found during their research.
Students may answer their
classmates questions if they know
the answers. Otherwise the class
might be able to look for the
information together. Students can
discuss if they think it is necessary
to add the new information to the
groups page.