Nowadays, students are called upon to respond to questions which require them to go back into the text to find evidence to support their claim. Engaging in this practice repeatedly with confidence and deep understanding calls for teachers to develop questions that are aligned to Depths of Knowledge, the work of Norm Webb.
With the adoption of the Common Core State Standards and the PARCC, evidence based questions have become the norm. So how do we teach ALL learners to respond thoughtfully to questions and cite evidence? Using Depths of Knowledge (DOK) as a framework for developing tiered questions which meets the needs of all learners. Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey in their book TBQ- Text Based Questions for students in grades K-5 and 6-12 does an amazingly impressive job in guiding teachers through this process.
Through a scaffolded teaching approach, students can progress in their learning one DOK level at a time and experience success. Close reading provides the landscape for students to go back into the text and dig deeper for meaning and respond to questions with evidence and confidence.
At a recent Text Based Questions workshop I presented, teachers spent time understanding the Depth of Knowledge wheel and generated questions reflecting DOK for complex texts that students read closely. This provided differentiated learning for all students as they responded to questions that met them where they are in their learning.