The Inquiry Paper

"'Write down all your questions.' he [recommends].  'Write about the things that bug you, that are bothering you; the things that are keeping you awake at night or keeping you in the shower a little bit longer.'  Wilhelm also suggest[s] 'reflecting afterward about something that happened and trying to explore it.'  To set this reflective process in motion, he picks a critical incident--'something that went really well, or something that went really wrong'--and examines it: 'Why did that happen?  What caused that to happen?  How might I get that to happen again or keep it from happening again?'  Although many of these suggestions are things that good teachers already do, by adding some teacher research tools, it all becomes easier and natural." 

Jeff Wilhelm quoted by Ruth Devlin