From this point, the teacher's continued curiosity about the problem will help to maintain the discussion. The teacher asks further questions so that students will explore the ramifications of their answers, look at other possibilities, and weigh evidence from the text. Modeling inquiry in this way empowers the teacher intellectually in a way that factual or evaluative discussion seldom can. Leading a factual discussion, the teacher is the checker of facts, a gatekeeper for class participation. In evaluative discussion, the teacher either passively accepts students' personal values and experience, or tries to challenge and develop them, which leads to both pedagogical and ethical pitfalls.
Students originate and develop opinions .
We urge teachers to ask only genuinely open questions. A teacher's opinions, whether voiced openly or disguised as leading questions and selective challenges, relieve students of the need to think on their own. To acknowledge students' efforts, teachers instead address the content of students' responses, asking them to explain their thinking and to comment on others' opinions. Students recognize such questions as encouraging and validating. Because the teacher's questions prompt students to draw evidence for their interpretations from the text and to consider alternative opinions and evidence, students develop their own opinions and build an interpretation of the whole from their own insights.