ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the importance of asking challenging, critical questions about the world, culture, and society as part of a robust, decolonial classroom practice. It begins with a vignette that demonstrates the problematic nature of reading programs like Accelerated Reader or Reading Counts. The chapter then provides instructional approaches designed to encourage students to ask challenging questions. It introduces an approach to reading instruction that centers major socio-cultural questions through student-developed inquiries. Next, the chapter provides ways to design writing instruction to allow students space to engage productively with social and cultural dilemmas and divisions using op-eds. Then, it examines how to integrate critical media literacy as a way for students to recognize the consequential nature of literacy. The chapter ends with a vignette to encourage discussion around students’ responses to reading quizzes, questions to consider when planning for preparing students to ask challenging questions, and resources to explore to learn more about supporting students’ question development. It also offers tips on how to integrate student questioning into assessment practices and technologies that support student questioning.
