What it is. A margin question is only useful if it is worth answering.
Why our test works. Children write questions answerable by copying the next word, which tests nothing. Naming the standard — would a TEST ask this — gives them an outside measure of a question's worth, and at least two must ask WHY, because those are the ones that cannot be answered by looking.
Leans on. Unit 0 lesson 2.
Watch for. Require two why-questions per page. Without a number they will write none.
Write margin questions a quiz would actually ask. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher converts notes to questions, rejecting one that only asks for a word and replacing The class reads Writing Book 5, p.53 — our own page, so a child who was absent can still get the lesson.
You open by saying where this sits — what it follows and what it is part of — in one sentence, and then you give them the reason it matters, in your own words, for about ten seconds.
Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher converts notes to questions, rejecting one that only asks for a word and replacing it with one that asks for a reason. The board copy is what they look back at when they stall, so it stays there for the whole lesson.
The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class judges three margin questions for whether they are worth asking. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on their notebooks instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They open Writing Book 5 to page 53 and read it with you. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.
Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone: Write margin questions for a page of notes. At least two must ask WHY.
You close on the exit direction — Read your best why-question. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Ask the question the quiz would ask.
Require two why-questions per page. Without a number they will write none.