What Is An I-Chart? Inquiry Charts were developed by James V. Hoffman, based on the work of McKenzie, Ogle, and others. I-Charts offer a planned framework for examining critical questions by integrating what is already known or thought about the topic with additional information found in several sources.

How Does It Work? On a given topic, you'll have several questions to explore. These are found at the top of each individual column. The rows are for recording, in summary form, the information you think you already know and the key ideas pulled from several different sources of information. The final row gives you a chance to pull together the ideas into a general summary. It's at this time you'll also try to resolve competing ideas found in the separate sources or, even better, develop new questions to explore based on any conflicting or incomplete information.

How Does It Look, Generally? The I-Chart that appears below is merely a suggestion. You and your students can create for yourselves an I-Chart to help you analyze several sources of information. You should feel free to modify the I-Chart, such as including a bottom row to list new questions.