Your comment on on Tom Woodward’s blog implies that Lemov overlooked the technique “feign the curiosity of a novice.” I wanted to let you know that, as a part of “Ratio” (Technique 17), Lemov states that one way of placing most of the cognitive work back on the students is to “feign ignorance” (p. 94). For example, “A theme is just a summary of what happens in the story, right?” I love feigning ignorance and I agree that if done with the right tone of voice it can empower students to be teachers for a while.

I would love to see Lucy West do this so I could model it. My biggest concern was the students that (often) do not understand but really want to. Many of mine are embarrased enough that they do not know the answer. I would love to do this with them and have it work in a positive way for them. I had a thought that you could even start the year off doing this with vocab. Ask the question once and ask 3 kids to repeat the answer, even when the first student gets it right. You can never repeat math vocab terms enough. That way they get used to this methodology and may not be so offended once you start doing it for incorrect answers.

With both senarios I think that being consistent and doing this frequently is going to be key. My problem tends to be that I read about and use these great ideas for a while but eventually revert back to my old ways. This is why I need to write on my hand with sharpie.

She did it so often, even just during the one lesson she modeled for us, that the kids came to expect it and were in no way offended by it.

Julie: I think that the question would have to be asked with much sincerity from the teacher to not offend the student.

Agreed. It strikes me very much along the same wavelength as the question you ask to snap a drifting student back to attention. It’s pretty easy for that to come across as punitive, when you really want to play the inquisitiveness, as you note, with total sincerity.

“So what do you think?”