Literature Responses Part II: Disallowed Question Types

What's in a question?  Quite a bit, actually, much to the amazement and amusement of our students as they learn the three question types: recall, inferential, and open-ended.  There are certain sub-sets of question types, however, that should be disallowed unless there is some specific purpose for engaging in them.

These are:

"Yes or No" Questions: These basically dwell in the realm of recall-based questions anyway, but they rarely serve purposes other than checking to see if students read, say, a passage for homework...though they do suffice for quick quizzes, too.

"Stumper" Questions: Questions that are impossible to answer based on recall or inferential knowledge of the text.

• What was Ponyboy's mother's middle name?
• If the Curtises had a dog, what would be it's favorite kind of tree?

Prediction Questions: These should be reserved for the start of a text, the predictor role of Literature Circles, the predictor role of Literature Responses, tantalizing students at the end of a day's reading with what will follow, or extending the end of a novel/text.

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A fairly excellent rule-of-thumb to use--especially when trying to create great open-ended questions--is asking if the question could, in and of itself, lead to a sustained and meaningful discussion/essay prompt.  The whole point of assigning texts is encouraging students to authentically and meaningfully respond to the texts.  In this new light "What was Ponyboy's mother's middle name?" doesn't stand very tall against "In your opinion do you think Ponyboy should be tried for murder/manslaughter? Why/Why not?"