Paula Rogovin is a teacher in the New York City public schools for twenty-eight years, Paula Rogovin continues
to love teaching, especially inquiry, which makes her teaching fulfilling and joyous. Paula currently teaches at
the Manhattan New School, P.S. 290, and is the author of Classroom Interviews: A World of Learning (Heinemann,
1998). She is a longtime social activist and mother of three adult sons.
Summary
Any teacher can develop a research workshop. And in this new, reader-friendly book, Paula Rogovin shows how
to do it. Demonstrating how children's interests and questions become the central focus of the curriculum, she
offers dozens of easy-to-use techniques for organizing the classroom and the school day to support student research.
She also provides explicit guidelines for finding a wide range of resources, fostering family and community involvement,
and dealing with assessment, homework, and diverse student interests and abilities. As examples of how to follow
the guidelines, two complete research studies are included.
"Inquiry teaching," Rogovin writes, "is interdisciplinary." And her book details how the topics
of student research become part of reading, writing, read alouds, math, art, music, social studies, and science
activities. The first six chapters lay the foundation, as they answer such questions as: What is inquiry teaching?
What is guided research? How can we involve the students' families? How is the classroom organized for guided research?
What are some of the specifics regarding the study of writing, reading, and literature in an inquiry classroom?
The next two chapters are actual studies from the People at Work research�about people who make or drive vehicles,
and about Woody Guthrie.
Table of Contents
1. Inquiry
2. Guided Research: What Is It?
3. Family Involvement
4. Our Inquiry Classroom: The Room Itself
5. Writing in Our Inquiry Classroom
6. Literature and Reading in Our Inquiry Classroom
7. Research Study: People Who Make or Drive Vehicles
8. Research Study: Woody Guthrie
Appendix: Excerpts from Family Homework
