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Mini-Inquiries
Mini-inquiries are quick small-group investigations of authentic questions that
come from kids, from teachers, or from the curriculum. Often these inquiries
are spontaneous, unplanned, and serendipitous. Wherever the topics come from,
teachers use mini-inquiries as a way to honor kids questions, to give them practice in doing research, and to engender delight in learning. While working at
Glenwood Elementary School in Wisconsin, Smokey came upon a classic miniinquiry unfolding in Beth Kaminski’s first-grade class. Beth recounts the story here.
INQUIRY: Icky Sticky Tape
PRIMARY
Beth Kaminski, Glenwood School, Greenfield, Wisconsin
It was early September and we were celebrating the first student in our classroom
to have a birthday. The kids were making cards for Callie, and she wanted to make
a big envelope to put all her cards in. I gave her a piece of construction paper that
she folded in half. I also gave her a piece of sticky tape (lick ’n stick tape, as some
call it) so that she could secure the sides of her envelope. As I was demonstrating to
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Callie how to use the tape (“just lick and stick”) I must have made a face revealing
my dislike for the taste of the tape.
Of course, the other kids noticed and everyone wanted to try the tape and all
had the same reaction—YUCK! I mentioned to them that I used sticky tape back
when I was a first grader and that it tasted the same way back then. For some
reason, they were fascinated by this. They wanted to see all
the rolls of tape that I had in our cupboard!
We finished up the birthday cards and were ready to move
on to more curricular things. I wanted to introduce the kids
to our “Information Highway”—black paper with a yellow
strip of sticky tape down the middle—made to look like a
road, with one side labeled “Learning Lane” and the other
side labeled “Wonder Way.” I brought out my collection of
oversized Weekly Reader/Scholastic newspapers; I have a
huge variety of these with nonfiction articles that I have
laminated for the kids to explore.
So with their Post-it notes and newspapers at hand, they
were ready to “cruise the information highway.” After the
kids wrote or drew on their Post-its (or “cars” as some named
them), they placed them on the highway in their respective
lanes. Wouldn’t you know it, even with all these wonderful
articles to explore, quite a few Post-it “cars” ended up in
Wonder Way with sticky tape questions on them (I was
thinking, What?! Really?!). I created a “parking lot” for the
sticky tape questions (a place to put great questions—because
they all are—but the sticky tape obsession was kinda holding
us back from really moving down the info highway at this
point!). Well, believe it or not, the sticky tape questions kept
making their way out of the parking lot and back onto the
highway. I knew it was time to surrender.
The mini-inquiry groups just formed naturally. One group
wanted to invent a new, better-flavored glue for sticky tape. So
I let them take out ten rolls of tape from the supply closet—
each a different color—and they started dreaming up different
flavors to match each color. They then made a chart with each
color and surveyed their classmates on which flavor to choose.
One group wanted to research the tape—who made it,
how was it made? While researching on the web, they found
a recipe for homemade nontoxic glue, so they decided to
become scientists and create their own flavored tape (lemon
and mint). This entailed assembling ingredients from home,
boiling water in our microwave (safety glasses for all!), and
mixing up test batches.
Mini Inquiries  195
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Another group wanted to create a commercial to sell the flavored
tape their classmates were developing. They created a little drama where
Vanessa played the teacher announcing an art activity to a table full of
kids. “Today, you can use colorful markers,” she animatedly tells her
“students.” The kids holler “Yay!” Then she announces that they can
also use sticky tape, and they all go “Boo!” Teacher Vanessa turns to
the camera, throws up her hands, and says, “What am I going to do?”
Suddenly, Elise appears as the Sticky Tape Fairy/Superhero, wearing a
cape festooned with (what else?) sticky tape. With her magic wand, she
transforms the icky sticky tape into delicious favored tape . . . and they
all live happily ever after.
At first, Jordan simply couldn’t find a group that satisfied him—until
my researchers-turned-scientists developed two flavored tapes (mint and
lemon). They were a little wary of trying their own product. So Jordan
found his calling: taste tester!
Then there were the letter writers. Before we could send a letter to the
sticky tape manufacturer we wanted to anticipate how the company might
react to our suggestions about flavoring their tape. One group pretended
that they were the sticky tape company president and the other group
was the first grade writers. They wrote back and forth back to each other.
Kids practice writing to sticky tape company:
Der Stece tap capney,
We are frst gratrs. We think you need to flavr our stice tape. It tast gros.
Fram,
First grade
Kids write possible sticky tape company response:
Der frst gradrs
We can not put flavrs in yor stiketpe. We fritint you wi eat it and get sik. No way
Hozay!
Frum Mr Aiden
A follow-up note from the kids to sticky tape company:
Der Companie,
No we will not ete it. We haf smellie marcrs and we nvr ete dem scept my bruthr
one time and maybe mi dog but he doesn’t go to skol.
From Frist Crade
196  Comprehension and Collaboration
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The sticky tape company possible response:
Standards Skills
Dear first grade,
Zorry but madee iz to Epensve
■■
Ask open-ended
research questions
and develop a plan
for answering them.
■■
Gather evidence from
available sources.
■■
Record basic
information in simple
visual formats.
■■
Organize and present
their ideas and
information according
to the purpose of
the research and
their audience.
■■
Conduct short research
projects based on
focused questions,
demonstrating
understanding of
the subject under
investigation.
$Ching $Ching
Fron
Mrs. Grace
After those rounds of practice, we were able to better able to support our position
on flavored tape. To create our official letter, I scribed on a chart while the kids
tossed out ideas from their practice letters.
Dear Sticky Tape Company,
We are first graders at Glenwood School and we have a brilliant idea for you.
Here’s how our idea started. We were using sticky tape to make a project. Even
though we loved all the bright colors of the tape, along with the fact that we do not
need to use messy glue, we did not like the taste of the adhesive!!
Wouldn’t it be great to flavor the tape?! We think so.
After surveying our classmates we came up with some wonderful flavors for
each colored tape. Here are our results: green-mint, red-strawberry, blue-blue
moon, purple-grape, brown-chocolate, white-marshmallow, black-jelly bean,
orange-candy corn, pink-bubble gum, and yellow is lemon. Sounds fantastic,
doesn’t it?
Now, we know you may be thinking: Kids may want to eat the tape. Or, It
would be too expensive. Or, It’s fine the way it is! Well, let us explain why your
thinking is wrong. First of all, we may be kids, but we’re pretty smart. Just because
the tape is flavored doesn’t mean we want to eat it! We have used smelly markers
before and never felt the need to eat them. Also, you could put an age requirement
on the tape. For example, “Must be 3 or older to use.”
As far as being too expensive, our teacher said she would spend more money on
the flavored sticky tape if it means that we would use it more without complaining!
And finally, if you think it’s fine the way it is—well it’s not.
My teacher said even when she was in first grade nobody liked the taste of
the tape. It’s time now to make a change, and we are the ones that want to do
it! Please consider flavoring our sticky tape. You will see more and more teachers
buying your tape because kids will LOVE to use it!!
Thank you for your time,
First Graders at Glenwood Elementary
3550 S. 51st Street
Greenfield, WI 53220
Mini Inquiries  197
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I conveyed our class letter via email to the president of the
school supply company where we had ordered our sticky tape. A
few days later the kids got a response: “Thanks for your comments.
We will refer this back to the maker.” Now we realized that the
school-supply companies are resellers. They don’t actually make
the stuff they sell; rather, they ship items made by another
company. So the quest continued—to find someone at the
company who actually makes the stuff and get their response.
A little more digging revealed that our tape had been made
just 150 miles away in Appleton, Wisconsin, by a paper company
called Pacon. We mailed our letter to the head of marketing, and
she promptly replied. I appreciated how gracefully the company
reminded us to read and follow the directions
Learning to Love Research
Obviously, Beth’s students loved doing the research. But we
can’t count the number of times we have waltzed into a
classroom to model the inquiry process, only to hear groans
and moans when we utter the word research. “I hate research” is, sadly, a common
refrain among the older kids in our schools. Maybe this is not so surprising when
you consider the dull drudgery that conventional schooling often dubs research.
You know the type: mandatory animal reports in second grade, country reports
in fifth grade, and term papers in high school, all of them sounding remarkably
like encyclopedias, differentiated only by the name in the upper left-hand corner.
Research is not a boring endeavor reserved only for school reports. Authentic
research is a process we go through every day, not just once a semester to
produce a term paper. We do it when we buy a new bike, choose a brand of
cereal, or head off to the polls. Research is central to making informed decisions in daily life. As a matter of fact, asking and addressing questions is really
what it means to be an adult. We adults spend much of the day, both in our
home life and our work life, asking questions and searching for answers. We
need to share this with kids, and let them in on this secret: Research is a vibrant,
dynamic process of finding specific information to learn about the world and
deal with daily life. Research can and should be F-U-N!
Many books on literacy instruction focus heavily on teaching kids to ask questions. But teachers ask us all the time, “When do they get to answer all of these
questions?” Our response: Every single day, with what we call mini-inquiry.
The purpose of asking questions, of course, is to find the answers. Mini-inquiry
projects—short-term small-group research that lets students search for and find
information relatively quickly—give kids a wonderful opportunity to ask questions, address them, find some answers, and satisfy their curiosity.
198  Comprehension and Collaboration
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