3 WAYS OF SPARKING QUESTIONS (K-7)
(from Juliet Robertson’s “Dirty Teaching”)
WHY?
for students to practice crafting meaningful questions
to practice “holding” questions in mind without judgement or answering right away
HOW?
ACTIVITY 1: THE WORLD IS CURIOUS (K-7)
Take your class outside and divide them into pairs. Tell them they’ll have a few minutes to walk the school grounds and “find something interesting”. Ask them if there’s anything they should not bring back and generate a few safety guidelines with them before they head out. They should remember the location of the objects, because they’ll be putting them back in place at the end of the lesson.
Once they bring their objects back, each child or group needs to think for a moment and write down a question about their individual object. Go round the circle and request that each question is asked as the object is put into the centre of the circle. The questions should not be answered as they are posed. Students in the circle just wait and let ideas bubble up. As you go around the circle a second time, students offer their thoughts about one question they heard.
This can lead into lots of discussions about:
• What‘s the difference between open-ended ones or closed ones? Is one better than the other?
• Are there connections between any questions (e.g. their structure or their theme)?
• What’s the point of asking and thinking up questions?
ACTIVITY 2: TWENTY QUESTIONS (K-7)
One child is “it” and silently chooses one of the objects brought to the circle. The other children then take turns asking a question which helps everyone to work out which object is the chosen one. The responder can only answer ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘don’t know’. The class can only ask a direct question three times. (e.g. ‘Is it the ___?’).
ACTIVITY 3: THE DAVINCI CURIOSITY CHALLENGE (K-12)
Leonardo DaVinci strongly believed in the value of curiosity. He understood that asking questions is more important than being able to answer them, as it leads to new ideas and ways of thinking.
Working in pairs, challenge your class to walk around outside and write or record with a digital recorder as many questions as they possibly can in the space of ten minutes. They can be questions linked to what they see, hear, feel and smell outside. They may also be random questions which pop into their heads based on how they are feeling. This helps out the reluctant writers who can then question the purpose of the activity (e.g. ‘Why do I have to do this task?’ or ‘Isn’t there anything better to do with my time?’).
After the question compilation activity, the children can work through their lists and identify their three favourite questions. From here, discussions can be had about what makes a good question as well as how the activity helped them to explore their environment.