Better questions come from better sentence frames. This handout groups the moves real close readers use into five categories — Surface, Inference, Connection, Perspective, and Synthesis. Pick a category, post the stems on the wall, and require students to use at least two during a close read. The third column is for your own versions: once students can name what the stems are doing, they start to invent their own.

Category	Stems to try	My version of this stem
Surface What literally happened on the page?	“What did I literally see on the page?” “Who is speaking, and to whom?” “Which word is doing unexpected work?”
Inference What is the text doing beneath the surface?	“I think ___ because the text says ___.” “This word or phrase suggests that ___ because ___.” “At this point in the story, ___ is likely to ___ because ___.”
Connection How does this link to other texts or to my life?	“How does this connect to ___?” “Where else have I seen this pattern?” “This reminds me of ___ because ___.”
Perspective Whose voice is here — and whose is missing?	“Whose voice is missing here?” “How would ___ read this passage differently?” “What does the narrator want me to feel, and why?”
Synthesis How has my thinking changed by the end?	“How did my thinking change?” “I used to think ___, but now I think ___ because ___.” “What is the bigger claim this text is making?”

After a close read, log the stems you actually used. In the first column write the stem word-for-word. In the second, the question you were trying to answer. In the third, the conclusion you reached — with a citation.

Stem I used	What I was trying to figure out	What I concluded