Suppose the Wolf Were an Octopus: Guides to Creative Questioning

By Myrna Kemnitz

The Suppose the Wolf Were an Octopus series, for instructors of children in kindergarten through the eighth grade, is designed to develop critical and creative thinking through elementary- and middle-grade literature. For each title within the books, there is a brief synopsis followed by questions that require children to use both lower-order and higher-order thinking skills.

Description

The Suppose the Wolf Were an Octopus series is an essential resource for instructors of children in kindergarten through the eighth grade. Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, it is designed to develop critical and creative thinking through elementary- and middle-grade literature.

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a framework for questioning students that ranks questions by type, from those that use the lower-order thinking skills of remembering, understanding, and applying knowledge to those that provide children with opportunities to use the higher-order thinking skills of analyzing, evaluating, and creating. The Suppose the Wolf books are built around children’s stories and novels (both fiction and nonfiction) and provide questions that instructors can ask about those works to promote thinking at each of Bloom’s levels.

Each book explores the rationale for creative questioning in the teaching of literature, with an overview of Bloom’s Taxonomy. For each title within the books, there is a brief synopsis followed by several questions for each level of the taxonomy, all designed to enable children to use all of the various thinking skills, from simple to complex. It also provides instructors with thought-provoking questions about children’s literature.

The series provides information and questions for instructors who:

  • Wish to teach thematically and are seeking appropriate materials
  • Might not be familiar with a literary work and find reassurance through the questions that it is indeed a piece to be included in literature study
  • Wish to study more deeply a genre, historical period, or writing convention

This series enables instructors to save countless hours of lesson preparation!

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