QAR (Question-Answer-Relationship)

Question Answering QAR (Question-Answer-Relationship)

Background Information for the Teacher: When developing questions to stimulate or assess comprehension, it is useful to think about how students will formulate an answer. Different questions may prompt answers from different sources, and so it is useful to think of question-answer relationships (QARs) (Pearson and Johnson, 1978). The answer to some questions may be textually explicit (literally stated in the text). The reader might paraphrase the text, point to the exact words, or read them aloud to answer the questions. Some questions are textually explicit (in the text) but require that we search different parts of the text to formulate an answer. The reader may have to integrate information from several paragraphs or pages to answer the question. Other questions may call for a response that is textually implicit, only suggested or implied by the text. A reader has to think about what the author has said and integrate information from his background knowledge/experiences to answer the question. Sometimes, however, the answer to a question does not come from the text at all. The reader must rely entirely on prior knowledge or beliefs to answer the question (a reader’s “script” or “in the head”). These questions are scriptally implicit. Raphael and Pearson (1982) have categorized the relationship between these types of questions and their answers as RIGHT THERE, THINK AND SEARCH, AUTHOR AND YOU, and ON YOUR OWN.

Teaching the QAR strategies helps students develop an awareness of the multiple sources of information in their reading. It has been demonstrated that students can be taught about QARs, and that this knowledge of where answers come from can actually improve their ability to answer questions. There is also evidence that students maintain their use of QAR strategies over time, and that QAR training with narrative text transfers when students read expository text.

In a review of research on QARs, Raphael and Gravelek (1984) note that “classroom training in QARs appeared to make average and low ability students look much like high-ability students in their ability to answer questions.” When teaching questioning strategies to struggling readers, teachers should begin with simple materials and provide ample practice, support, and feedback to help students gain confidence in using the strategies correctly across a variety of reading assignments. QAR is also an effective strategy for students who are learning English. Formulating questions and answers helps them to express their thoughts in English, often by borrowing the language of the text. It gives them an opportunity to practice their language skills while talking about the content they are learning.

The four QARs provide a useful framework for teachers and students. First, when students are consciously aware of the different sources of information available to answer questions, they become strategic in their reading and thinking, and their comprehension is improved. Second, the four QARs are helpful in

1 QAR teacher planning. Teachers need to strike a better balance between literal questioning and higher level questioning. Questions reflecting the Think and Search, Author and You, and On Your Own help students see relationships, connections, associations between text and prior knowledge, experience, and/or other ideas in the subject area. Such questions often have more than a single word answer, which stimulates students to think rather than wait to be told the “right” answer.

There are a few difficulties inherent in this very simple QAR taxonomy, however. Comprehension is too complex to be tidily classified by four relationships. QAR is NOT a linear process either. Readers do not begin by comprehending information that is right there, then move on to putting ideas together, and end up being on their own. In fact, these kinds of comprehension occur simultaneously and interdependently. It could even be argued that ALL comprehension is related to our prior knowledge in order to make sense of the text. Also, the definitions of the four relationships are not precise. For instance, if a student answers a question with the exact words from two different paragraphs in the text, is the QAR Right There or Think and Search? Often, a reader will answer a question using an Author and You or Think and Search when the information is actually Right There. The answer is not necessarily wrong just because it came from a source other than the one the teacher had intended.

Suggested Teaching Procedure: 1. Explain the four QARs and demonstrate them with relatively simple examples. 2. Once students appear to have grasped the relationships, give them several labeled questions (Right There, Think and Search, Author and You, or On Your Own) and have them develop answers. 3. As students become competent with this type of practice, begin posing questions without labels and instruct students to develop answers and decide which QAR applies. 4. Ask students to generate questions at each of the four QAR levels.

NOTE: The emphasis should be on comprehension. Throughout this instructional sequence, discussion of questions, text, and answers is essential to help illustrate and reinforce the QAR relationships. What is important are the answers that students supply and the sources of those answers. QAR instruction should not become a task of simply “labeling” questions as Right There, Think and Search, Author and Me…

Ample support, practice, and feedback are also important if students are to achieve a thorough understanding of the four QARs. Students will gain confidence as they practice labeling and answering sample questions from a variety of reading assignments. In other words, one or two practice sessions will NOT be sufficient. Emphasis should always be on comprehension!

In the Book In My Head

Right There Think and Search Author and Me On My Own

EXTENSION IDEAS FOR QAR STRATEGY:

Questions Game: After reading a selection in the textbook, students work in small groups/partners to review the important concepts and information from their reading. Each group then generates eight questions─ two from each of the QAR categories: right there, think and search (putting it together), author and you, and on your own. Once each group/partnership has generated the questions, they exchange with another group and work collaboratively to answer them. At this point, students may debate the accuracy of the categories in which the questions were placed, but in the process, they will have reviewed the text and thought more critically about different comprehension levels necessary to understand it.

ReQuest: Instead of the teacher asking questions, students are given an opportunity to ask questions of the teacher. The ReQuest procedure (Manzo, Manzo, & Estes, 2001) is relatively simple. Identify a text selection that has several obvious stopping points for discussion. Prepare a few higher-level questions for each section of the text. Prepare students for the reading selection by previewing it, by discussing background information or selected vocabulary, or by some other appropriate activity. Students will be reversing roles with the teacher. As they read a predetermined section of text, they are to think of questions that they will pose to the teacher. (The teacher should respond without looking at the text.) When students have asked their questions, they close their books, and the teacher directs questions to them over the same section of text. (At this point, the teacher should model higher-level questions.) Repeat the reading-questioning procedure through successive segments of text to appropriate conclusion.

Direct Explanation: QARs—In the Book, In My Head, Right There, Think & Search, Author and Me, and On My Own—provide a way to talk about the relationship between questions and their answers. Knowing the source of the information needed to answer a question helps readers formulate an appropriate response. When readers are consciously aware of the different sources of information available to answer questions, they become strategic in their reading and thinking, and comprehension improves.

Model: SHARED READING After introducing the four QARs, read aloud the article, “Bacteria: The Good, The Bad, and the Stinky,” while displaying it on an overhead transparency. Next, display the first four questions following the article. They are labeled according to the four QARs— Right There, Think and Search, Author and You, and On Your Own. Have participants work in small groups to discuss the answers to the first four questions as well as the (QAR) labels. Make sure they understand the rationale for each question-answer-relationship. (Ex. Do you agree that this a “think and search” question? Go back to the text and think about the source of the answer. Is the answer in the text or in the head? How was the answer “pieced together?” How much text information had to be processed in order to come up with a correct response?)

Guided Practice: Provide guided practice with the same passage using the final four questions following the Bacteria article. Students may collaborate (pairs or small groups) to answer the questions and decide which QAR applies for each of them. Share and discuss the answers and rationale for each QAR. What is the answer? What is the source of the answer? Why is this a (right there, author and me, on my own, or think and search) QAR?

Extended Practice: (Remind teachers that ample support, practice, and feedback must be provided to students before they can be expected to create appropriate questions.) Teachers will work with a partner to create one or two questions for each of the four QAR categories using the text passage, “Pictures of You.” Ask them to exchange questions with another group to answer and label according to the appropriate question-answer-relationship. Discuss and provide feedback. (Are the questions answered correctly? Do you agree with the QAR label? Why or why not?)

4 Bacteria: The Good, the Bad, and the Stinky

You can’t see ‘em; you can’t hear ‘em; you can’t taste ‘em. But, oh boy, can they make you smelly or sick! In this science article you’re about to hear, you’ll learn the nasty truth.

Bacteria are tiny living things (known as microorganisms) that cover the entire earth. They live in the dirt and deep in the sea. They float through the air and thrive in the bodies of every living thing. They are not plants, not animals, not fungi. Instead, they belong to a group of living things called MONERA.

Most bacteria are so small that if you put 10,000 of them in a row, they would measure only about an inch. (And getting your hands on 10,000 bacteria is a snap. One bacterium can divide into a million bacteria in half a day!) Of course, there always has to be an exception to every rule. A monster bacteria form has just been discovered lurking in the reeking, sulfurous muck of the ocean bottom near the coast of Namibia in Africa. These are big guys, big enough that you can see them without using a microscope. Each is about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. That may not seem huge, but in the bacteria world, that’s a King Kong of a germ.

What do bacteria love to do most of all? Munch! They munch on the oil in our skin and the partially digested dinner in our guts. They’ll invade the flesh of a dead cow and the grease in your kitchen drain. They’ll even take on a half-mile-wide oil spill!

Most bacteria are totally cool little microbes (another name for microorganisms). Some turn raw sewage into chemicals that help plants grow. Then there are those that specialize in devouring grease, eating pond scum, or lapping up those huge oil spills. Good bacteria such as these are actually sold by laboratories around the world. Other good bacteria help break down animal hides so they can be turned into shoes, handbags, briefcases, and those cool motorcycle jackets. Other ones are used to make vaccines, medicines, yogurt, and even tea!

5 Then there are the ”geeky” bacteria, like the ones that create a stink in our armpits. They’re not exactly harmful, but they sure are annoying.

Finally, there are the “bully” bacteria that can make us sick by causing food poisoning, strep throat, pneumonia, diarrhea, and other problems. They come in different shapes, just like the bullies at school. They are tall, skinny ones, round, pudgy ones, spiral ones, and curvy ones. And, just like the school bullies, they can make your life miserable.

One of the main ways that bully bacteria are spread is through bad hygiene. Translation? Not washing your hands after you go to the bathroom. Remember that half of what your body’s getting rid of is bacteria. Some of it is harmless, but some is not. As you clean yourself, bacteria can leap onto your hands. Once on your hands, the bacteria can start to reproduce like crazy. If a person who works at the local burger joint doesn’t wash, those bacteria creep into everything he handles—the burgers, the fries, the milkshakes. And before you can say, “I think I’m going to be sick,” you—and everyone else who had the bad luck to eat there that day—will be throwing up!

Other times, sickness starts when bacteria that live aboard one animal make the move to another. A perfectly healthy chicken’s guts are crawling with salmonella bacteria that help the chicken digest all that chicken feed. But when those same bacteria get into our intestines, disaster can strike. “But,” you say, “it’s not like I’m kissing a chicken.” True, but chances are you’re eating one! Under-cooked chicken can give you salmonella. Even eating the uncooked egg that has been beaten into brownie batter can make you pretty sick, so don’t lick that spoon!

Some nonliving things, such as air conditioners, can hide bacteria cities. Certain types of these microbes adore the warm wetness that’s created by air conditioner motors. And the air blowing from them propels millions of bacteria into the air—and the lungs of whoever happens to be in the room! Before you know what hit you, you’ll be shaking with chills and flushed with fever from Legionnaires disease.

6 Fortunately, other living creatures, namely fungi, can beat up the bully bacteria. That’s basically what that nasty pink stuff is that your doctor gives you for ear infections or strep throat—a mess of bigger, meaner critters. Kind of like the principal on the warpath. These ANTIBIOTICS (the pink stuff) destroy bacteria. They have a downside, though. They wipe out the good bacteria, too (the ones that break down food). That’s why lots of us end up with diarrhea when we take antibiotics. But, fear not! The good guy bacteria will be back! And you can even help bring them back faster by eating yogurt that contains active acidophilus cultures.

All living things rot…sometimes quickly, sometimes very, v-e-r-y slowly. Rotting is, believe it or not, a part of growing—of living. Without rotting, the corpses of everything that has died since life began would be piled up all over the planet. Bacteria help make that rotting happen. Let’s say that an armadillo gets squashed on the highway. A goner, right? No heartbeat. No breathing. But the bacteria living on the armadillo are still chugging along. They invade the tissue and alter the chemical makeup of that armadillo, breaking it down into smaller and smaller bits until it disappears and is reabsorbed into the earth.

So let’s have a round of applause for those hard-working bacteria. If it weren’t for them, you’d be stepping on a mile-high mound of dead bodies on your way to school every day!

(Labeled) Question-Answer-Relationships

1. Question: What are bacteria? Answer:

QAR: Right There (The answer is a direct quote from the text.) 2. Question: What are the three kinds of bacteria described in the passage and what are some of the things they do for (and to) us? Answer:

QAR: Think and Search (Reader must select information from several paragraphs in the text.) 3. Question: How do the “geeky” bacteria create body odor? How can it be prevented? Answer:

QAR: Author and Me (Reader must know the function and properties of bacteria and be able to use background knowledge of basic hygiene to infer the answer.) 4. Question: If antibiotics are effective in destroying bacteria, why do you think doctors warn against using them every time we get sick? Answer:

QAR: On My Own (Reader may rely almost entirely on prior knowledge; little or no knowledge of the text is required.)

8 Answer the following questions and identify the QAR you used to find the answer.

5. Question: Describe three ways “bully” bacteria may spread.

Answer:

6. Question: If you were a manager at McDonald’s, how would you ensure that workers keep their hands clean, especially after going to the bathroom?

Answer:

7. Question: What are microbes?

Answer:

8. Question: What was the author’s purpose in writing this article?

Answer:

9 Pictures of You

(This was written by a high school student to her brother. He was killed in a tragic accident when he was nine and she was only five. She calls the letter a tribute to him—and she says it helped heal the sadness that she always felt but couldn’t talk about.)

Dear Brother,

Dad caught me in the closet looking at the old photo albums. I was sitting there, with the album in my lap opened to the picture of you and me and Mom on a bed giggling. When dad opened the closet door, I tried to hide my face among the hanging clothes, but I’m sure he noticed my hot, puffy eyes and said that he and Mom were trying to sleep. So I left, taking the albums in which we are together. Well, Dad noticed that too, so he followed me to my room. Thank God, I locked the door in time.

He knocked on my door and said, “Don’t look at those pictures now.” And as an afterthought, “It’s late.” Come to think of it, I’m the only one now who ever looks at those pictures. Since you left, there have been albums and albums of me and Ian and Mom and Dad, but here are only three with pictures of you. I always have to get these out from under all the rest.

The pictures are mostly of the mountains, remember? There are pictures of Yellowstone and Mount Rushmore where you found those stinky goat remains. I remember that you were the only one willing to go near the pile of bones and clinging pieces of flesh that seemed to be reaching for me. My four-year-old mind couldn’t accept how a nice, cute goat could die and become such a horrible skeletal monster.

It’s been 12 years since that vacation. Time has a funny way of twisting my perception of you. You’ll always be my big brother, though you’ll never grow out of your nine-year-old body. Did you know that I dreaded turning nine, because I thought I might die, too? I wonder if you are still nine or 20 in soul, like you would be if you were still here. Can you hear me? Do you know what I’m feeling? Maybe time has made you ageless.

10 Eleven years since I saw you. Today we are the average American family—Mom, Dad, and two kids. It’s just Ian and me now. When I look at the photo albums filled after you went away, I wonder what they would look like with you there, hugging me and tousling Ian’s hair. If you were here, our breakfast table would be a tighter squeeze, but I wouldn’t mind.

You know, if you were here, you’d live in the room across the hall from me where all our guests stay. This year you’d probably be at college, somewhere like Harvard. Mom and Dad would be even tighter with the checkbook than they are now, but I wouldn’t mind. Maybe you’d come home with a girlfriend who would say, “So that’s the kid sister you’ve been bragging about.” I’d be able to tell all my friends about the crazy things my 20-year-old brother does. You could drive me to school and sign sick notes for me when I want to sleep in—because you would have gone through it all before me. Maybe I wouldn’t have had such a hard time with Mom and Dad about doing things. And you’d be in the pictures of our family outings.

Maybe you would be none of these things; I’ll never know. I do know that if you hadn’t left, we wouldn’t have to talk about you in hushed tones and act like there were only four of us, the ever-so-happy normal American family.

We moved after you left. Mom couldn’t bear to live on the same street where the accident occurred. I don’t’ think Mom and Dad kept in touch with anyone from that neighborhood after you left. For months it seemed like Mom cried, or actually flooded the house with her sobs. If I mentioned your name, she would break down. After a while, I just didn’t mention you at all.

Even today when my friends come over and ask who drew the monster poster that hangs in the kitchen, I always answer that a distant cousin drew it. I did tell someone once, a short time after you left, though. At the time I didn’t understand why Mom and Dad were so upset that I told: I was only five. Once I understood that you weren’t coming back, I couldn’t tell people “My big brother drew that” and explain you without feeling red and blue and puffy.

11 Did I mention that I’m the only one who ever looks at the albums? Sometimes I ask Mom if she’d like to look at them and she’ll say, “Okay, we should.” Then I’ll ask if Ian and I were pretty babies. She says yes we were, but you were the prettiest of the three. I guess Mom doesn’t need pictures to see your baby face. Dad is so close- lipped about all these things. He has a picture of you wrapped in yellowing plastic but he doesn’t like looking at it. I always end up looking at the albums alone, so I can remember your face.

Most of the time we seem to live like you were never with us, and I was always the oldest child in the family. Mom doesn’t cry anymore. Sometimes she mentions you, but not in a sad way. Dad doesn’t mention you except when we visit your grave. Ian never mentions you.

As for me, I always tell people who have older brothers how lucky they are. I can only imagine what life would be like now, if you were here. Since I was young I’ve wanted to ask our parents what you were like. I was too young when you left to remember much about you. I have wanted to tell people what death at an early age is really like. This is the best way I know how.

Are you happier where you are now than when you were here? Do you miss being able to grow up with us and do things that you could be doing if you were here? You left me with what some call grief or sorrow or mourning, but there is no word to describe it. It’s the feeling that makes me cry in the dark when I’m alone, and ask you questions that I know you won’t answer.

Sometimes I feel as if I’m a stranger looking at those pictures—that those kids couldn’t have been you and me and Ian. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you. If I reach into the recesses of my memory, I can catch glimpses of you leading me, carrying me. Each year the pictures mean more to me because those images of you are fading. Every time I look at them I cry for being too young to know you other than as a big person I could cling to. I also cry for a hopeless vision of what life could be, should be, if you were here. The pictures are all I have left of you, so at least I know that you once held me in your nine-year-old arms.