Skip to content

Experience with Languaging Activities (ELAs) guided by a sequence of experience-based questions

Pattern · All patterns
Evidence · 13 claims (8 for, 5 mixed) · 22 studies (8 causal, 7 review, 6 quant-synthesis, 1 design), q1–q4 · 8 of 22 report an effect size · 5 claims rest on one study

Description and scope

A reusable routine, from the Languaging in the Content Areas (LICA) thesis (Manzo & Sherk 1977), for turning something learners have experienced, read or heard in any subject into language they can use and test: a bounded experience or text → "What have you experienced, read or heard?" (an account checked against the source) → "What do you feel or think about it?" (a personal response and connection) → "What have you learned?" (the content idea, stated in the learner's own words and checked) → "What more might be learned, and what more needs to be known?" (a question the learner carries into the next session). The answers are worked through in talk or writing; the source calls this "languaging". The intended change is in conceptual-understanding of the content met and in the learner's habit of asking what more needs to be known (metacognitive-strategy), with motivation-affect as a secondary outcome. The source states that not every question need be asked aloud, but that below some point, which it does not define, the activity becomes an ordinary reading or language-arts exercise.

It is general across content areas: the experience can be a laboratory observation, a field visit, a primary source, a worked problem, a case at work, a film or a passage of a textbook. A particular course built on it (one subject, one population, one setting) is a design that uses this pattern, not a version of it.

No claim in this wiki tests the routine as a whole, against reading or discussion without the question sequence or against anything else. The source is a 1977 conceptual paper that proposes it and reports no comparison. What the wiki does test are parts of it, each in its own population: specific, content-targeted reflection prompts against generic ones (engineering undergraduates; a meta-analysis of school writing-to-learn studies); guided against free written reflection (graduate service-learning students); teaching learners to generate their own questions about a text (K–12 reading); and writing about content as a learning activity (elementary to college). Two findings limit it: activating what learners already know about a topic did not by itself improve comprehension in two experiments, and in one 1981 study, training learners to elaborate beat giving them questions that prompted elaboration. Each is carried to this pattern by extrapolation, and the sequence below says which step each one bears on. The sequence is the old page's four-question order, made concrete; every dose, fading step and move-on rule is an untested proposal.

Where this page sits. The Reflection principle owns the general relationship for the "what do you think / what have you learned" steps (structured prompts against a criterion beat unguided reflection, qualified by the learner's ability to judge their own work) and its evidence; the Activation principle owns the "what have you experienced" step (making prior knowledge visible helps only when the instruction then uses it). The Experiential Learning Cycle is the neighbouring pattern for a designed experience followed by a debrief and a changed attempt; this routine is lighter, applies as readily to a text as to an action, and ends in a learner's question rather than a second attempt. This page does not restate those models.

Inputs: establish the design brief

Field Record or elicit
Learner and starting observation Before the first session, give one short experience or passage and ask the four questions in writing. Record whether the learner's account of what they read or saw matches the source, whether a personal response is offered, whether the "learned" answer names a content idea or only an opinion, and whether any "what more" question is answerable. Record reading and writing fluency in the language of instruction. Preserve unknowns rather than labelling learners novice.
The experience and the content What the experience is (text, demonstration, field visit, lab result, work incident, film), how long it takes, and which one or two content ideas the "what have you learned" answers should reach. Whether the content is a concept, a principle, a procedure or vocabulary (verbal-association).
Context and activities Setting (classroom, online-self-paced, online-instructor-led, workplace-clinical), single-session, days-weeks or term-plus; group size; whether a teacher is present to respond and how much of their time is available; whether answers are spoken, written or typed; whether some learners join remotely.
Learner-valued goal Ask what the learner wants from the content (to pass, to use it at work, to understand something that puzzles them, to be heard). The "what do you feel or think" step is where this surfaces; record it. Record disagreement with the designer objective.
Designer objective Which is the target: understanding of the content idea, vocabulary, the habit of generating "what more" questions, or engagement. Name the one the assessment will weigh.
Outcome A content check on the "what have you learned" answer against the source, scored apart from the personal response; for the questioning habit, whether learners' own questions are answerable and lead somewhere; immediate or delayed.

A request to "use experience-based questions in this unit" does not specify these. Ask what experience, what content idea and what check before choosing how many questions to make explicit or how much to write.

Sequence and conditional policy

The default sequence is the old page's order. Steps 2 and 4 rest on neighbouring claims carried by extrapolation; steps 1, 3 and 5 are untested here. Doses are proposals.

  1. Choose a bounded experience and name the content idea. A passage of one to three pages, a 5–10 minute demonstration or video, a single lab result or one work incident. Write down the one or two ideas the "what have you learned" answers must reach, so the routine has a criterion. For learners new to the content, give the meaning of key terms before or with the experience, as the source's vocabulary routine does (meaning first, then personal associations). Evidence status: untested; from the source as the wiki records it. A 1970 teacher self-analysis programme asserts, without reporting data, that questions referring to direct, concrete experiences are the most effective stimulators of pupil thinking [+W] is a 1970 programme document asserting this without data.
  2. "What have you experienced, read or heard?" Each learner gives a short account (2–3 sentences, 2–3 minutes), then checks it against the source with a partner or the text. Do not stop at recall of what learners already knew. Evidence status: activating prior knowledge [~S]: activating topic knowledge did not improve primary pupils' comprehension once prior knowledge was controlled, while activating metacognitive knowledge did; prior-knowledge activation instructions [~M] had little effect on retention in one experiment. So the account is only useful if the next steps use it and correct it.
  3. "What do you feel or think about it?" One or two sentences of personal response: what surprised, what it connects to in the learner's life, work or other subjects, why it might matter to them (3–5 minutes). Keep it private or optional when the topic is sensitive. Evidence status: untested here. Task value [+M] (two reviews) reports that brief writing about how course material connects to learners' lives raised engagement and grades, especially for groups underrepresented in a domain; that is a separate intervention, carried here as a reason for the step, not as a test of it.
  4. "What have you learned?" The learner states the content idea in their own words, in writing where possible (3–6 sentences, 5–8 minutes), with a content-specific prompt ("What does this show about how X causes Y?"), not a generic one ("What did you learn today?"). The teacher or a model answer checks it against the criterion named in step 1, and corrects it. Evidence status: specific reflection prompts [+S]: first-year engineering students given specific, content-targeted prompts scored higher on exams and projects than those given generic prompts, with the same number of reflections, and in a meta-analysis of 48 school writing-to-learn studies, metacognitive-reflection prompts were the one writing-content moderator associated with larger effects; guided against free reflection [+M]: guided reflections were more often analytic and integrative, while more than half of free reflections were descriptive only (graduate service-learning course); writing to learn [+S]: writing about content gave a small positive effect on achievement across 48 school studies, enhanced by metacognitive prompts and longer treatment, reduced in grades 6–8 and when assignments were longer.
  5. "What more might be learned, and what more needs to be known?" Each learner writes one question they cannot yet answer (1–2 minutes). Early on, give stems ("Why does…?", "What would happen if…?", "How does this connect to…?"); collect the questions and open the next session with two or three of them, answered from the next experience or text. Evidence status: self-questioning [+S]: teaching students to generate their own questions during reading improved comprehension (median d = 0.36 on standardized tests across intervention studies; a review of 35 K–12 studies found it effective across diverse learners), with question generation modelled and prompted; that is question generation about a text being read, not a closing question carried forward.

Dose and progression across sessions (untested proposal). A cycle takes 15–25 minutes after the experience. Run it two or three times a week across a unit of 6–10 sessions, on a different experience each time.

  • Sessions 1–2: the teacher models all four answers aloud on one experience before learners try; every question is explicit and written; give a stem for each; learners answer individually, then compare in pairs; the teacher reads every "learned" answer, or a sample of five if the class is large.
  • Sessions 3–5: stems only for steps 4 and 5; pairs answer steps 2 and 3 orally and write steps 4 and 5; the teacher responds to the "learned" answers by asking why a correct answer is correct (the source's "Why did you choose c?" move), not only by marking errors.
  • Sessions 6 onwards: steps 2 and 3 may be implicit (a quick spoken round); learners write step 4 without a stem and generate step 5 questions that the next session's text or activity is chosen to answer; learners take turns leading the four questions for a small group.
  • Move on (drop a stem, or let a step go implicit) when a learner's "learned" answer states the named content idea accurately on two consecutive sessions and their "what more" question is answerable from the next source. Keep the stems for any learner whose "learned" answer is still a summary of the experience or only an opinion.
Observation Discriminating probe Proposed action, with its uncertainty
"What have you learned?" is a retelling of the experience Ask "What does that show about [the named idea]?" If they can then state the idea, the prompt was too generic: switch to a content-specific stem. If they cannot, the content may not be visible in the experience to them: give the idea directly and ask them to find it in the experience. Neither branch is tested.
"What do you feel or think?" is blank or "it was fine" Ask privately whether the topic connects to anything they do or care about; offer a choice of two prompts. If they find a connection, keep the choice of prompts. If the topic is sensitive or they decline, make this step private or skip it; do not grade it. Untested.
A confident "learned" answer that is wrong Ask for the part of the text or experience that shows it. If they cannot point to it, the answer may come from prior belief rather than the source: correct it directly and ask for a revised answer; activation of a wrong belief left uncorrected is the failure case on the activation pages.
"What more" questions are trivial or unanswerable ("Why is it called that?") Ask which of three stems their question fits, or show two contrasting learner questions and ask which would teach more. Keep stems longer and model question generation again; the self-questioning claim's reviews used modelled and prompted question generation. Untested here.
Answers are good when written, thin when spoken (or the reverse) Compare the same learner's written and oral answers on one session. Let the stronger mode carry step 4 and use the other for steps 2 and 3. Untested.
A few learners answer; the rest copy Collect written step 4 answers before any discussion. Use individual writing before pair talk; do not read class agreement as each learner's understanding. Untested.

Fitting the design to a situation

The three facts that most change the decision:

  • Whether learners can already make sense of the experience or text. The routine adds questions; it does not supply content. Activating what learners already know did not by itself improve comprehension. If unstated, ask: after the experience, can a learner say in one sentence what it showed?
  • Whether the "what have you learned" prompt can be made content-specific, and who checks it. Specific prompts beat generic ones, and guided reflection was analytic more often than free reflection; an unchecked answer can harden an error. If unstated, ask: what idea should the answers reach, and who or what will compare them with it?
  • How much facilitator time there is, and in what mode answers come. The routine is cheap to run but expensive to read. If unstated, ask: will anyone read the answers, how soon, and are learners in one room, remote, or on phones?
If the brief says… Then change… Basis
Learners are novice in the content, or the text is hard for them Give the meaning of key terms and the gist first; make step 2 a checked account (compare with the text) rather than free recall; give a stem for every step for longer (sessions 1–5); correct each "learned" answer against the named idea. Activation [~S] and activation instructions [~M]: topic activation alone did not help (primary pupils; one other experiment), carried to this routine
Learners are advanced in the content Make steps 2 and 3 implicit; spend the time on step 5, with learners generating questions and choosing the next source to answer them. Untested proposal
Learners are in grades 6–8, or young child writers Keep writing short (one or two sentences per step), answer steps 2 and 3 orally, and write only step 4. Writing to learn [~S]: effects were reduced in grades 6–8 and with longer assignments (a moderator in one meta-analysis, read from its abstract)
The goal is understanding of a concept or principle in a course Write a content-specific step 4 prompt for each session and score the answer against the named idea; keep the number of reflections constant rather than adding more. Specific reflection prompts [+S] (engineering undergraduates; school writing-to-learn studies)
The goal is reading comprehension of content texts Teach step 5 as question generation during reading as well as after it: model it, give stems, fade them. Self-questioning [+S] (K–12 reading; reviews read from abstracts)
The goal is vocabulary For each new term, give the meaning and an example first, then ask "What experiences, thoughts or associations do you have with this term that might help you remember it?"; learners record the dictionary meaning and a personal association. Untested; the source's structured-discussion vocabulary routine (strategy page)
Learners see no point in the content, or are from groups underrepresented in the subject Weight step 3 towards usefulness: "How could this matter to you or to people you know?", two sentences, ungraded. Task value [+M]: brief utility-value writing raised engagement and grades (two reviews); a separate intervention, carried to this step
Adults in work settings (adult-workplace, workplace-clinical) Use a recent work incident or case as the experience; make step 4 a statement of what they would do differently and why; make step 5 a question to take to a colleague or the next shift. Specific reflection prompts [+S] and guided reflection [+M], carried from undergraduates and graduate students to workplace learners
online-self-paced, no teacher Embed the four prompts after each segment; after the learner commits a step 4 answer, show a model answer and ask them to mark what they missed; adapt the stem to the content of the segment. Metacognitive prompts [+S]: in computer-based environments prompts helped, more so with feedback, task-specific and adaptive (meta-analysis read from its abstract)
Mixed modes: some learners remote, some in the room, or phone-only Take every written answer in one shared channel (a shared document or chat) so remote and in-room answers are seen together; keep phone answers to one or two sentences; let remote learners answer step 3 privately. Untested proposal
One teacher for many learners, or scarce facilitator time (volunteers, a busy shift, a tutor checking in briefly) Have learners write steps 4 and 5; the facilitator reads a sample of five step 4 answers and responds to the whole group, asking one learner why a correct answer is correct; pairs check each other's answer against a model answer. Untested; the "why did you choose this correct answer" move is the source's (strategy page)
single-session only Run one cycle on one experience; end with each learner's step 5 question written on an exit card and answered in a short follow-up message or handout. Untested proposal
Learners with low confidence or low literacy in the language of instruction Answer steps 2 and 3 orally in pairs or in the first language; give a sentence frame for step 4; respond first to what is right in an answer; never read personal responses aloud without consent. Untested; from the source's precepts (students fail from too little information; the teacher as a model of language and inquiry)
The brief names its own routine for this (a KWL chart, "What? So what? Now what?", a journal template) Keep it. Change only what the evidence says matters: make sure one item asks for the content idea with a content-specific prompt and is checked, and that one item asks what more needs to be known. Specific reflection prompts [+S], on prompt specificity, not on any named routine
The answers feed a product or performance for a real audience Turn step 4 answers into a short public explanation for that audience, written after the content check, and step 5 questions into the questions the product sets out to answer. Untested proposal
High stakes, or understanding must hold weeks later Score the step 4 answer against the content idea separately from the personal response; retest the idea on a new example after a delay; do not grade step 3. Untested proposal

Seven rows rest on a claim (novice learners, grades 6–8, a conceptual course goal, reading comprehension, low perceived value, adults at work, and self-paced online), each carried beyond the population, setting or intervention its claim page reports, as its Basis cell says; one more (a named routine) uses a claim only for prompt specificity. The other eight are untested proposals or the source's own guidance.

Choosing configurations from evidence

  • Make the "what have you learned" prompt specific and checked. Reflection improves learning and performance when it is prompted by structure [+S]: in a quasi-experiment with 208 first-year engineering students, those given specific reflection prompts scored significantly higher on exams, project work and two problem sets than those given generic prompts, with the same 52 reflections apiece (no effect size reported); in a meta-analysis of 48 school-based writing-to-learn studies, assignments with metacognitive-reflection prompts had a larger effect than those without (b = 0.48), the only content-type moderator to reach significance. Guided written reflection yields more analytic and integrative paragraphs than free reflection [+M]: in a graduate international service-learning course, guided reflections were 47% analytic and 27% integrative, and more than half of free reflections were descriptive only; the outcome is the kind of writing, not learning. Neither tests the four-question sequence; together they say the step that asks for the content idea should name the idea.
  • Write the answers, briefly. Writing to learn improves understanding [+S]: across 48 school writing-to-learn programmes from elementary school to college, writing gave a small positive effect on achievement, enhanced by metacognitive prompts and longer treatment and reduced in grades 6–8 and with longer assignments (read from the abstract); in one quasi-experiment, 64 eighth-graders taught a social-studies unit with writing-to-learn activities scored higher on the post-test (d = 0.61). The source's target learners are post-elementary, which is where the meta-analysis found the effect reduced: keep writing short at that age.
  • Teach learners to generate the "what more" questions. Self-questioning improves comprehension [+S]: teaching students to generate their own questions during reading improved comprehension, with a median effect of 0.36 on standardized tests and 0.86 on experimenter-made tests; skill-based and reciprocal-teaching approaches did about equally well; a review of 35 K–12 studies found the strategy effective across diverse learners and settings. Both reviews were read from their abstracts. The step in this routine is narrower, a closing question carried forward, so the claim supports teaching question generation, not this placement of it.
  • Connect to the learner, but do not stop at what they already know. Task value [+M]: two reviews report that expectancy and value predict choice and effort, and that brief utility-value writing increased engagement and grades in underrepresented groups; no effect size is recorded. Against it, activating prior knowledge [~S]: in a randomised experiment with 88 primary-school students, activating topic knowledge did not improve text comprehension once prior knowledge was controlled, while activating metacognitive knowledge did; and prior-knowledge activation instructions [~M] (students talking 1.5 minutes about topic-relevant headings before study) had little effect on retention. The "what have you experienced" and "what do you feel" steps are worth their time only if steps 4 and 5 use and correct what they surface.
  • Questions alone may not be enough. Training seventh graders to elaborate produced better long-term recall than questions stimulating elaboration [~M]: in one 1981 study, seventh graders trained to elaborate recalled more after one and three days than a group given questions that stimulated elaboration. It is one study with no effect size, but it qualifies a routine that relies on questions: model the answers and teach the moves (sessions 1–2 above), rather than only posing the questions.

Do not claim the four-question routine improves learning over reading or discussion of the same content: no claim compares them, and none measures the time it costs. Do not read a fluent personal response as understanding of the content. A precise abstention names the missing comparison (the routine against the same experiences followed by a content summary, or by unstructured discussion, on understanding of the named idea at a stated horizon) and the local observation that would stand in for it: the share of step 4 answers that reach the named idea, session by session.

The evidence by question

Further evidence, not yet read against this model

The old page cited no claims. These were read for this rewrite and bear on parts of the routine, but are not used as core evidence above.

Illustrative design instance and observation record

Invented illustration, not a tested lesson. An adult evening class in introductory chemistry at a community college, with some learners joining by video and two answering on phones, meets twice a week; the instructor has no assistant. The brief names the routine the department already uses, a "What? So what? Now what?" journal, so the table kept it: "What?" became the account of the demonstration checked against a partner's, "So what?" was split into a one-line personal response and a content-specific prompt ("What does the colour change show about which reactant ran out?"), and "Now what?" became one question to answer next session. All answers went into one shared document so remote and in-room answers sat together. In sessions 1–2 the instructor modelled a full journal entry aloud; from session 3 she read five "So what?" answers each time and asked one learner why a correct answer was correct. A learner said she wanted to help her son with his homework; the instructor's objective was the limiting-reactant idea. They agreed to score the content answer and leave the personal line ungraded, and to recheck the idea on a new reaction three weeks later. The claims cover undergraduates, school pupils and graduate students, not this population or setting; these are local choices to observe.

Record: experience and the named content idea → each learner's account, and whether it matched the source → personal response offered (yes, no, private) → "learned" answer and whether it reached the named idea → help given (stem, model answer, direct correction) → "what more" question and whether the next session answered it → candidate interpretations (generic prompt, content not visible in the experience, prior belief, copied answer) and their basis → recheck of the idea at the stated horizon. Preserve the learner's stated purpose and any change in it. An agent may summarize this record but must not fabricate missing inputs or assign numerical probabilities of understanding without a calibrated model.

Elements and limits

Reflection activities, metacognitive reflection, individual reflection, journaling, writing prompts, prompts, question formulation, structured discussion, class discussion and feedback. Principles it draws on: Reflection, Activation, Experiential Learning, Pre-reading Questioning, Cultural and Life Experiences Connections and Self-Monitoring.

This pattern is scoped to a short question routine applied to an experience or text in any subject. It does not supply the content (a learner who cannot make sense of the experience needs the content taught first), it is not a full experiential cycle with a second attempt (Experiential Learning Cycle), and it is not a discussion protocol (Discussion-Based Learning). The policy supports observation and design reasoning; whether the four-question routine improves understanding over the same experiences with a content summary or open discussion, for which learners, at what time cost and at what horizon, remains to be tested.

Claims

Examples

Key Sources

  • Manzo, Anthony V.; Sherk, John K., Jr. (1977). Reading and "Languaging in the Content Areas" A Third Generational Approach. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED136190
Page metadata
Field Value
type pattern
id experience-with-languaging-activities
title Experience with Languaging Activities (ELAs) guided by a sequence of experience-based questions
description A reusable routine in which learners answer, in talk or writing, what they experienced or read, what they think of it, what they learned and what more needs to be known, expected to improve understanding of content where the learned-answer prompt is content-specific and checked and learners can already make sense of the experience; no claim tests the routine as a whole, only parts of it.
status review
canonical True
generated by claude/unspecified on 2026-10-05
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — manzo-1977

Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.