Hameray Classroom Literacy Blog

Students Play Teacher: Writing Their Own Questions—with FREE download!

This is a guest blog post from fifth-grade teacher Diane Roethler. If you like what you read here,   read her other posts   or  check out her blog at this link !

I have previously blogged about both the Biography and  Download series. Today I am sharing another quick and easy way to use those books or any other nonfiction books in your classroom.


After students have had the chance to read the book, they become the teacher and prepare questions for the other students to answer.
  Give them a blank task-card template , and let them create the question and four answer options.

It is interesting to see what kinds of questions students ask.   Some go for big-idea questions, while others try to stump their classmates with the tiniest detail.

It is also interesting to see what kinds of answers choices students provide.   Do they try to trick others with the answer choices, or do they have one obvious answer?

Allow the students to check their classmates’ work.
  If a lot of students have the same wrong answer, the student can go back to their question to see if they could have worded it differently or given better answer choices. The possibilities for extension activities are endless!

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Diane has been teaching fifth grade in Iowa since 1999. She has her masters in Educational Technology and loves finding ways to integrate technology into her curriculum. She blogs about organization, classroom management, DIY projects, and more at  fifthinthemiddle.blogspot.com .  

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To download an information sheet with more information about the Download series , which contains the books show in this post, click the image to the left below. To download the nonfiction book worksheet, click the image to the right.