I've come around to seeing the value of keeping the definitions of "closed" (requiring only a few word answer) and "open" (requiring more of an answer) this simple. I think kids will bicker about it ("Can't ANY question be answered--poorly--by just a few words?"), but I think that misses the point and ultimately getting them to think about the questions is more important than whether the categories are perfect, knife-like tools for the task.
I wonder, though, whether at some point it might be worth adding in some other categories for thinking about the questions the kids pose. For example:
- questions of fact
- questions of values
- questions of opinion
- debatable questions (easy to discern two sides)
- questions that could be answered with the use of a general encyclopedia
- questions that would require specialized research to answer
- High School questions
- beyond-HS questions
- political questions
- questions that require a definition of terms
- etc.
Of course, this is NOT where I'd want to start...but it might be where I might want to end up. The goal might be to get kids to be thinking about what a question requires in order to answer it. This would help them answer the question, "Is this a good question for the 'next step' I have in mind?" In other words, would a question be a good one for a short research paper (v. a long one)? Is the question one that requires the help of an expert in the field? Is the question one that can we answered with web research? Is the question one that requires other, more basic questions to be answered first?
I'd like to work on a way to think about these different ways to think about the questions, to think about the ways to categorize questions.
Next: other ways to think about the questions--recognizing the tropes.
