The role of querying: Investigating subject-oriented meaning-making

This study investigates how students in a 10th-grade class used querying in subject-oriented meaning-making. We combine thematic analysis of a video-recorded learning trajectory comprising eight lessons in social science, with interaction analyses of selected episodes. We investigate how querying may prove productive and we aim to identify teaching strategies that are conducive to such querying. The findings suggest that querying can lead to cognitively demanding coordination and enhance an evaluative epistemic stance. We found the use of a microblogging tool to be productive in facilitating querying by displaying contrasting ideas and mediating uptake in whole-class conversations. Strategies to obtain productive querying are related to the teacher's assignments and uptake of students' contributions, as well as the teacher allowing students space to explore.