Genius Hour 20 Day Challenge - Day 4: Researchable Questions - Inch, Foot, or Yard?

Day 4: Researchable Questions - Inch, Foot, or Yard? 

Questioning is such a crucial compnent to Genius Hour. Celebrate any questions students ask, because they need to know how great it is to ask and how rewarding it can be to find the answer! Higher level thinking questions allow for more thorough and challenging projects. Here is an anchor chart I used to help students understand the difference between different questions.

What's great about introducing questions in this way is that it's very visual for students. Students [should] know that an inch is the smallest, and a yard is the largest. This anchor chart categorizes types of questions into yes/no, inch, foot, and yard questions. I start by explaining what a researchable question is:

• Requires you to use a source other than yourself to find the answer
• It can be researched - there is actually information out there to help you find the answer
• Not too broad (too much information that would take too long to find the answer), or not too narrow (little exploration)

Download this Researchable Question Posters FREEBIE to help students understand the difference!

YES/NO questions - A question that only has one answer: yes or no. It doesn't require much research.

INCH questions - A question that only requires a one word or short answer. It requires little research, and can be found in one source.

FOOT questions - A question that requires you to explain steps or summarize in your own words. It reqiures research for one or more sources.

YARD questions - In order to answer this question, it requires research from more than one source. When you put the information together, you make your own new idea. With this idea you can: create, draw conclusions, evaluate, and compare.

The goal for Genius Hour questions is for students to write Yard questions. Other questions, however, lead to Yard questions, so all questions are good as long as they are leading up to Yard questions. Download this printable for only $.99.

See a preview of the poster below! 

To help students understand the difference and classify questions, write your own inch, foot, and yard questions. Here's a FREEBIE with inch, foot, yard questions relating to matter. Posters come in a black background or a white background.

Continue practice with inch, foot, yard questions by incorporating it into everyday conversation. Align these questions to something you're learning about. Maybe take a KWL chart and have students categorize those questions. Questioning in guided reading is another natural way to allow students more practice with inch, foot, and yard questions.

Being able to classify questions is one thing, but writing questions presents another challenge for students. Tomorrow's post will show the activity we used to take on this challenge!