Educational lesson planning and delivery

Educational Lessons

The Art of Questioning -- What in the World?

Social Science, Reading, Language Arts, General Core Development

Standard: Adapted to any level; level shown is 3 to 4.

Students will improve reading and analyzation skills by learning how to raise higher level, more detailed questions.

After raising questions about pieces of fruit (other objects may be substituted), students will write, answer, and discuss several questions. The questions will focus on differing levels of Bloom's taxonomy.

Materials Needed: Apple, Orange, Banana, One unusual fruit (kiwi, ugli, etc.)

Pre-Assessment/Pre-Teaching -- Instructor asks general questions about fruit -- where it comes from, why it tastes good, how we get it, what color is it, what do you like best and why? This will gauge the level of understanding of the object, in this case fruit.

Procedure: 1) Instructor explains to the class that today we are learning an important skill -- how to ask questions. 2) Beginning with the fruit, instructor explains that low-level questions deal with recall and details; while higher level questions address analysis, application, synthesis and evaluation. To model these terms, use overhead and list out a matrix of the terms and ask students to put questions inside the boxes.

For example:

Memorization

Comprehension

Application

Analyzation

Synthesis

Evaluation

What color is the apple? What shape is the orange? Which fruit I s biggest? What color is the fruit? Name all the fruits and where they are grown (in general).

Which piece of fruit makes your fingers sticky? Which piece of fruit has lots of Vitamin C? Which piece of fruit goes best on cereal?

How can you peel an orange without getting your fingers sticky? What is the best way to eat an ____? Would you prepare any of these fruits hot?

What are three differences and similarities between the fruits shown? Why are some fruits more popular than others? Do we have access to fruit year-long? Why? Did we always?

If you wanted to create a new fruit using pieces of the fruits we have shown, what would it be called? What would it look like? Why might we want to do that?

Which fruit is better for you? Why? Which fruit might runners need? Why is there a saying, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away"? Do Americans get enough fruit in their diet?

Activity: Once the questioning is done, introduce a short story, poem, or lesson about one of these fruits (e.g. Johnny Appleseed for history, etc.). Read aloud, pass out a blank matrix and ask students to fill in the matrix with questions using Bloom's taxonomy -- at least two questions per heading.