LibGuides: Middle Grades Resources: Inquiry Practices

Why Inquiry?

Inquiry is a student-driven process through which students explore and investigate high-level questions in order to make real-world connections. An inquiry experience can look different across content areas, domains, and even grade-levels, but as a pedagogical approach it always requires a high level of intentional and thoughtful planning from the teacher. Inquiry lessons engage students in more rigorous, active modes of learning, build critical and higher-order thinking skills, and empower students to create connections between their lived experiences inside and outside of the classroom.

Humanities Inquiry Practices

Essential Questions for Meaningful Conversation in Story Analysis (Kissman, 2017)
This short blog post poses some potential questions to guide students through text analysis.

Math Inquiry Practices

100 Commonly Asked Questions in Math Class: Answers That Promote Mathematical Understanding, Grades 6-12 (Posamentier, Farber, Germain-Williams, Paris, Thaller, Lehmann, 2013)
This handy reference contains fun answers to students' 100 most frequently asked math questions. Discover high-interest ways to Teach to the Common Core's math content standards, Promote inquiry and process in mathematical thinking, Build procedural skills and conceptual understanding, Encourage flexibility in problem solving, and Emphasize efficient test-taking strategies.
Succeeding with Inquiry in Science and Math Classrooms (Marshall, 2013)
This guide helps hone the necessary skills to plan and implement inquiry-based lessons that engage math and science students.

Science Inquiry Practices

Argument-Driven Inquiry in Fifth-Grade Science: Three Dimensional Investigations (Sampson, Grooms, Hutner, 2020)
Are you interested in helping your elementary students learn the practices of science, including constructing explanations and engaging in argument from evidence? Argument-Driven Inquiry in Fifth-Grade Science will provide you with both the information and instructional materials you need to get started right away.
Argument-Driven Inquiry in Life Science: Lab Investigations for Grades 6-8 (Bickel, Gleim, Granger, Grooms, Hester, Murphy, Sampson, Southerland, Enderle, 2016)
The book provides 20 field-tested labs to help your students learn how to read, write, speak, and use math in the context of science. These investigations are much more authentic than traditional laboratory activities because students both learn important content and participate in scientific practices. The students design their own method, develop models, collect and analyze data, and critique information. The labs cover topics in four broad areas of life science: molecules and organisms, ecosystems, biological evolution, and heredity.
Argument-Driven Inquiry in Physical Science: Lab Investigations for Grades 6-8 (Grooms, Enderle, Hutner, Murphy, Sampson, 2016)
Argument-Driven Inquiry in Physical Science will provide you with both the information and instructional materials you need to start using this method right away. The book is a one-stop source of expertise, advice, and investigations to help physical science students work the way scientists do.
A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (2012)
This book identifies three dimensions that convey the core ideas and practices around which science and engineering education in these grades should be built. These three dimensions are: crosscutting concepts that unify the study of science through their common application across science and engineering; scientific and engineering practices; and disciplinary core ideas in the physical sciences, life sciences, and earth and space sciences and for engineering, technology, and the applications of science.

Social Studies Inquiry Practices

The C3 Framework for Social Studies (2013)
This in-depth look at C3 examines the Inquiry Arc from developing and planning through application in civics, economics, geography, and history.
Honing Our Questions to Deepen History Learning (McGrath, 2019)
This article takes a look at creating essential questions that "invites students to discover, think deeply, discuss, and shape their own understanding of the information."
Inquiry-Based Practice in Social Studies Education: Understanding the Inquiry Design Model( (Grant, Swan, Lee, 2017)
Inquiry-Based Practice in Social Studies Education: Understanding the Inquiry Design Model presents a conceptual base for shaping the classroom experience through inquiry-based teaching and learning. Using their Inquiry Design Model (IDM), the authors present a field-tested approach for ambitious social studies teaching.
Race Lessons: Using Inquiry to Teach about Race in Social Studies (Chandler, Hawley, 2017)
This book addresses the space between the theoretical and the practical and provides teachers and teacher educators with concrete lesson ideas for how to engage learners with social studies content and race.
Unpacking Skills & Content in C3 Framework
In this Relay made video professor Tart describes how to further unpack skills and content with a C3 Framework standard.

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