ABSTRACT
Inquiry is an elite term for a celebrated act of mind and spirit. However, the practice of inquiry takes place in learning communities across our so ciety. Consider the reflections of Tyrone, an urban teenager in a community literacy center project that will explore the problems of growing up in his urban neighborhood. Tyrone writes about meeting his college writing mentor:
Tyrone is taking a rival hypothesis stance to experience-a reflective move that poses an open question, actively considers rival hypotheses, and questions his own assumptions and evidence even as he is plotting a (discrete) way to get new evidence on the question. He illustrates an act of inquiry that many philosophical and academic traditions would be happy to praise and claim. It raises a question: Could we teach this intellectual stance to other students? What would this process of rival hypotheses thinking and argument look like if Tyrone had to run a biology experiment, or write an essay analyzing the causes of the Civil War, or troubleshoot a problem at his after-school job?
