Here’s a simple rule to help me ensure that I’ve left enough room to differentiate: never ask students a one-off question. Any question that I prepare should be part of a sequence of questions. Each question should have a follow-up. And those follow-ups should push students up Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Note the difference in these sets of questions.
Set A
- What is the main character’s trait in Hatchet?
- What is the setting in Hatchet?
- What is the story’s main problem?
- What is this story’s moral?
- Did you like this story?
Set B
- What is the main character’s trait in Hatchet?
- What are the benefits of that trait?
- How does that trait lead to problems?
- What character from another story, movie, or game has a trait with similar benefits and problems?
- If you switched those characters, which one would better handle the new situation?
Do you see the difference?
One-Offs vs Sequences of Questions
Set A jumps randomly from topic to topic, always staying at the lowest levels of Blooms. Then, at the end, it jumps to a pure opinion question (beware pure opinion questions!).
Set B sticks with one topic and goes deeper and deeper. Each question leads to the next question naturally. By the time they get to question five (and, no, not everyone needs to get to question five), students are primed to give an interesting, thought-out answer.
Now, if I had started with question five (“Switch Brian with another character from a different story. Which character would handle the new situation better?”), I’d get worse answers. Students are not ready for that level of thinking right away. The low-level questions set the stage for higher-level thinking. They provide that all-important scaffolding.
Most importantly, there is room for my most advanced student to think! With Set One, the most brilliant child is stuck in first gear. They’ll give very similar answers to every other student since each question has such a low ceiling.
Beware Multiple, Unrelated Questions
Once you start looking, you’ll see versions of Set A everywhere! Here’s one example I spotted online:
- Tell me where you are in the book.
- Are you enjoying the book so far? Tell me what has made it enjoyable.
- Does anything bother you about the book?
- How do you feel about the characters?
- How do you feel about the author’s style of writing?
- Would you suggest this book to other people?
Can you imagine catching up with your friend after summer break and asking questions in this way?
What was one thing you ate this summer? What was the best movie you saw? What is a place you visited? Who did you see this summer? What do you want to do next summer?
I mean… that’s not how humans talk! It’s SO surface level. It jumps from topic to topic. And (this is key) you never really let your friend talk. We do the same thing to our students when we jump from low-level question to low-level question.
Our most brilliant child never gets a chance to really say anything noteworthy.
Pick ONE Question. Build a Sequence.
To fix it, I’ll stick with one idea and ask follow-up questions. If I ask my friend about the thing they ate, I’d naturally ask another question about the thing they ate. Gosh, I might talk about things we ate for a long time before ever switching to the next topic.
In the example above, I think “Does anything bother you about the book?” pops out as intriguing. I’d drop the other questions and build a sequence based around being bothered by a book. That sounds cool!
We naturally ask follow-up questions in our normal conversations. So I should also do it when I ask students questions!
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