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Teaching Inquiry as Conversation: Bringing Wonder to Life

Abstract

In Teaching Inquiry as Conversation, Barbara Stripling and Darryl Toerien invite school librarians, classroom teachers, and education leaders into a deeper conversation about what inquiry can make possible for learners. Building on the Stripling Model of Inquiry and Toerien’s FOSIL framework, the book presents reflective inquiry as more than an academic process. It is a whole-child approach that helps students develop curiosity, identity, cultural responsiveness, voice, agency, and lifelong learning skills.

In their ALiVE! Library Project interview with Dr. David Loertscher, Stripling and Toerien discuss inquiry as a communal process of coming to know and understand the world. Their conversation highlights the role of school librarians as teachers of the inquiry process itself, collaborators across the curriculum, and advocates for learning experiences that empower students from kindergarten through high school. Together, the book and interview offer both a philosophical foundation and practical strategies for making inquiry central to school culture.

Attached, you’ll find the presentation slides from Stripling and Toerien’s ALiVE! Library Project interview with Dr. Loertscher.

Book Description

“Use reflective inquiry to motivate learners to follow their own sense of wonder and empower them to become learners for life.

Today's students display increasing emotional needs, and divisions in society illustrate the critical importance of students developing their own self-identities and deep cultural responsiveness. Teaching Inquiry as Conversation addresses the need for a holistic, personal, and deep approach to teaching and learning.

The conceptual framework and implementable strategies/models provided in Inquiry as Conversation enable school librarians and classroom teachers to build reflective inquiry experiences into their daily instruction and the culture of the school. Each chapter invites readers to join an ongoing conversation, as authors Stripling and Toerien explore the complexities and joy of unleashing the learning potentials of young people from kindergarten through their final high school years. The authors are uniquely qualified to host this conversation: Stripling created the Stripling Model of Inquiry in 2003 and has been developing a K–12 continuum of skills since that time, and Toerien is the originator of FOSIL, a model that brings the Stripling Model of Inquiry to life through collaborative planning and teaching, signature works, and a whole-school focus on inquiry.

The anecdotes, authentic examples, and practical strategies in the book guide school librarians and classroom teachers to engage and empower learners through a conversational and whole-child approach to inquiry. Learners will grow academically, socially, emotionally, and culturally as they discover their own strengths and ideas, converse with others, and interact with the ideas and opinions that they encounter through their reading, viewing, and listening.”

Teaching Inquiry as Conversation will be available as an e-book May 14, 2026, with print editions available June 11, 2026. View the book page from Bloomsbury.

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