1) Ask as many questions as you can
2) Do not stop to discuss, judge, or answer any of the questions
3) Write down every question exactly as it was stated
4) Change any statements into questions
I feel pretty confident that most of my students will be willing to jump right into this. They like to give their input and they're used to being asked for it. We're not a very teacher-centered school. However, they are less used to having their brainstorming or list-making go somewhere--much less having it drive the curriculum--and I think it will be useful from the start to make the stakes clear. They might not ask, "Why are we doing this?" but I think it will help me in the long run to address this.
So, why ARE we doing this?
Well, high school is very much about answer the questions thrown at you. College is not. The real world is not. It's unlikely that you'll spend the rest of your life answering other people's questions. The ability to frame good questions--by which I mean "questions that you feel are worthy of pursuit"--will have a direct impact on your future.
For seniors (in my PSPW class): you will need to create your own questions for every single paper you write for me this year, including your senior paper. I'm not going to be giving you questions to answer (and I'm certainly not going to be giving you thesis statements to write about). You'll need a method to come up with these questions. Otherwise, you'll have a very hard time in this class.
For all: the students who do well in this school are those who find a way to connect the work they are required to do to their own interests. If you can't find a way to make history relevant to yourself--even if you work your butt off--you're going to have a really hard time doing well. Some teachers will try hard to make the work seem relevant to you, but this is hard for teachers: they don't know you well enough to know what will spark your interest. Ultimately, you'll have to do this yourself.
We talk a lot at this school about the concept of student ownership of education. This is what I'm talking about: YOU doing the asking. Will you always have this opportunity? Probably not. In some classes, your teachers won't make room for your questions. However, you WILL find places where you do have the opportunity, and you'll want to take advantage of this.
Again, learning to ask questions is not only about making high school more interesting. It's about learning a skill that you'll need outside of and beyond the walls of BHS. Employers are looking for it; the problems of today demand it.
You probably think, "I already know how to ask questions." You probably do. But learning to ask good questions requires that you exercise your question-asking muscles. The goal of our work is to help you figure out how you can ask even better questions than you already ask, and it's to help you figure out how to use the questions you ask to drive your education, your work, and your life. Heady stuff, I know.
[need more here: why are we doing this specific, first Qfocus exercise? Figure out the first Qfocus and then you'll be able to complete this intro.]
[Perhaps the Qfocus might be something like, "Questioning leads to truth." A central issue throughout this course will be the relationships between public speaking/writing (persuasion), research and truth. This might be a way to start off our quest.]
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