Significance:

Critical thinking is such an essential skill for students to have not only in reading but throughout
the curriculum in the 21
st
century. Technology has quickly overtaken the focus on recall and
reproduction thinking with search engines like Google having an immediate answer for its user.
However, teaching students the skill of thinking critically about a piece of literature and
dissecting its message for deeper meanings is not something technology can easily do. Therefore,
although recall questions and answers still have a place in education, they are used more
frequently as a basis understanding for thinking about a piece of literature more indepthly by
making connections, comparing and contrasting, elaborating, predicting, and more. The research
question I set out to find answers to at the beginning of my interventions was: In what ways do
student-created Depth of Knowledge (DOK) questions affect levels of student thinking in
reading instruction?
Throughout this course of study, I have learned that student-created DOK questions can
positively increase student comprehension in reading instruction. Not only do student-created
DOK questions require students to use critical thinking in order to be developed, they also create
a surplus of meaningful questions for students to answer in order to develop and further their
higher level thinking skills. Students are often so accustomed to teachers asking these
meaningful questions about a piece of literature which does not carry over into their own
reading. By guiding students to think more deeply about a piece of literature, teachers challenge
students to use what they already have learned to expand their knowledge further during reading.
By the end of my inquiry when my students were creating DOK Level 2 and higher questions
about The Stranger, they had a new level of mastery for this piece of literature than they had
experienced before. The pride and curiosity that sparked from student-created DOK questions
within my students was meaningful to their learning and increased their level of thinking simply
by interest alone.
The new implementation of 21
st
century skills in the classroom includes the Four Cs of
creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication, along with the integration of
technology throughout the curriculum. Through the course of my study, I was able to effectively
implement the strategies of critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and integration of
technology into the instruction.
A connection I made for my students learning in particular was that having the integration of
technology take the place of pen and paper work was not successful. My students required the
process of revising and editing their Jumanji, Zathura, and The Stranger DOK questions on a
piece of paper prior to submission on my class blog in order to fully express their best quality
critical thinking about our readings. Therefore, although the integration of technology was not
eliminated during my phases of inquiry, it was not used in the meaningful way I had intended.
The students use of pen and paper to visually see their question develop meaning through
multiple revisions was more influential on the students ownership of their work as well. My
students showed more care and consideration for the creation and deeper meaning development
of their DOK question for The Stranger in my second phase of inquiry because their work was
easily tangible for their learning. This student behavior relates closely to the activation energy
Shawn Achor (2010) describes in his book, The Happiness Advantage. The activation energy
necessary for students to get out their tablets, go to my class blog, and find their individual DOK
question post is relatively high; however, the activation energy necessary for students to take out
a pencil and worksheet to begin revisions is much less. Therefore, from my experience through
this study, lowering the students activation energy to be invested in their work, the more
positive the result will be.
In terms of collaboration during my intervention, I learned that when students are facing a
challenging task such as creating a deeper meaning question based on a piece of literature, they
are most successful when working independently. Although students were able to effectively
collaborate during our discussions for answering their student-created DOK questions for
Jumanji, Zathura, and The Stranger, the focus students required to create those deeper meaning
questions was not attainable during group or partner work. I observed that independent work
time eliminated student distractions and provided my students with the optimal opportunity to
focus solely on the task at hand which was using a newly adapted skill of thinking deeply about a
piece of literature in order to create a question which relied on connections, opinions,
predictions, and more to answer. During discussions at the completion of each book by Chris
Van Allsburg, students were able to reinforce their credibility for their own DOK created
questions and use their critical thinking skills to answer their peers DOK questions. This relates
closely to Vrchotas (2004) research about the thoughtful opportunities question and answer
sessions offer, and also develops student communication skills in the classroom.
While observing my students experience these 21
st
century skills through their reading of
Jumanji, Zathura, and The Stranger, I valued their efforts and perseverance through challenging
lessons based on reading comprehension. I learned that fourth graders are able to adapt to and
excel in new learning skills and strategies with the proper scaffolds and supports. The concept of
thinking critically about a piece of literature was difficult for my students prior to my
intervention, which was what interested me in its implementation via Webbs DOK model. This
inquiry showed that student-created deeper meaning questions based on a piece of literature does
increase reading comprehension amongst students. Because the students DOK questions
required a higher level of thinking beyond Jumanji, Zathura, and The Strangers pages, the
students identified different messages and made connections throughout their reading. Also,
when answering each others DOK questions based on each of Chris Van Allsburgs books, my
students continued to make new connections and find new deeper meanings based on their peers
interpretations of each book. This created a collaborative community in my classroom in which
all of us were learning from each other and expanding our understandings of the pieces of
literature used in my intervention.

Achor, Shawn. 2010. The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology
That Fuel Success and Performance At Work. N.Y.: Crown Business.
Vrchota, D. (2004). Touchstone Award: Challenging Students' Thinking with Bloom's
"Taxonomy". Communication Teacher, 18(1), 2-5.