Student-Generated Questions: How to Teach 3 Levels of Questioning

There is no shortage of professional development on teaching educators how to write questions. We add them to our lesson plans, we spin manual or digital wheels with Bloom’s stems, and we rework our final assessments to explore different depths of knowledge.

The right question can unlock incredible insights and inspire students to explore a text through a new lens. Over the years, I have had students say to me in various iterations, “if only you could sit next to me on the AP exam and JUST ask me questions, then I could understand any passage on the test.”

It was these moments that made me realize that it is not enough for us to ask questions, but that we have to train our students to ask questions of different levels, enabling them to tap into deeper meaning independently.

However, my students have to be trained to do this work and develop this mental muscle. I present to students three levels of questions: Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. I provide them with examples using texts we have all read together. (Check out this slide deck and note-taking guide here. Click the file and make a copy to make edits for your own classroom.)

Level 1: On the line (Directly stated in the text)

Level 2: Between the line (Requires some analysis or interpretation)

Level 3: Beyond the line (Applies the text to broader context or real world situations)

After this mini lesson, we read the literary masterpiece… “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” I always have an eager volunteer to read Goldilocks, baby bear, the narrator, and we laugh. Then we spiral back to the levels of questions. As a class, we write some level one questions just for fun. Then I tell them in their teams to generate two Level 2 questions and at least one Level 3 question.

At first, most of their initial responses are superficial. “Why is Goldilocks wandering around in the woods by herself? Where are her parents?”

I then ask my students what abstract topic is Goldilocks being alone in the woods centered on? By this point, often a student will realize that Goldilocks is unsupervised, but she is still a child. With some guidance, this question becomes “To what extent are parents responsible for the actions of their children?” Or “At what age can children be held accountable for their crimes?”

Another surface-level question that always emerges: “Why does she just break into their house and start eating their food? That’s just crazy.” I help students by having them consider this as a character analysis. With just a little bit of coaching, this question transforms into the Level 2 “What does Goldilocks’ entitled behavior suggest about her character?” And perhaps even a Level 3 “Who or what might be represented by Goldilocks in today’s society?”

I have seen some incredible questions over the years—“What do the bears’ possessions indicate about their relative positions within their family hierarchy?”

“What does the absence of the lock on the door suggest about the society that the bears live in?” or “Do we need locks to be honest and law-abiding?”

“Are the bears responsible on any level because they did not take security precautions?”

“What is the function of the reversal of expectations with the bears who are predators being victims and the perpetrator being a little girl?” Or “What might be the social commentary of Goldilocks yelling “help” after she has broken into their home, eaten their food, and damaged their possessions?”

Students are always amazed by the questions that we can create from just what seems to be a simple fairytale.

It’s important that following this lesson, you give students a chance to practice this skill with a grade level text. Ideally, within the next 24 to 48 hours. Once they get more confident, you can begin to push them to create Level 2 and Level 3 questions dividing up the big ideas from the CED.

What you do with them next depends on your instructional goals. Maybe they just write the questions on the passages as they read for the first time or turn and talk with a shoulder partner. Perhaps you have a grander scale in mind, and use these to create a full Socratic seminar. Whatever your goals, by unlocking student’s abilities to ask the questions themselves, we give them the power to think more deeply and critically about any text, from a fairytale, to a novel, to a lease agreement, or to a post on social media.