Three Level Questioning Encouraging deeper thought; creating agile minds

Three Level Questioning What is it?

Three Level Questioning What is it? A method of inquiry into a text that reflects varying levels of thought Teacher initiated questions Student intitiated questions OR

Three Level Questioning Purpose? To create cognitive agility – the ability to move gracefully from detail to generality, from the concrete to the abstract and back again.

Three Level Questioning Level I Questions Literal – concrete - fact Require no interpretation Answers are explicit, found in the lines of the text Can be objectively verified

Three Level Questioning Level I Questions In the scene in the Plaza Hotel room, what music can be heard from the ballroom? “As Tom took up the receiver the compressed heat exploded into sound and we were listening to the portentous chords of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March from the ballroom below.”

Three Level Questioning Level I Questions How does Daisy respond when Gatsby throws his colorful shirts around the room? “Suddenly with a strained sound Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily. ‘They’re such beautiful shirts,’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ‘It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts.”

Three Level Questioning Level I Questions What looms over the Valley of Ashes near Tom Wilson’s gas station? “But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens. . . . But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under the sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.”

Three Level Questioning Level II Questions Abstract, interpretive Answers are implicit, found “between the lines” Require inference based on verifiable fact (Level I)

Three Level Questioning Level II Questions What is ironic about the music overhead from the Plaza ballroom? Why does Daisy cry at the sight of Gatsby’s shirts? What might the billboard for Dr. T.J. Eckleburg represent?

Three Level Questioning Level III Questions Super abstract Beyond the text itself Thematic – universal Will not contain direct references to the text at all Have everything to do with the text and nothing to do with the text

Three Level Questioning Level III Questions Can wealth mask fundamental problems in a marriage? Are regrets inevitable? Can one repeat the past? Does a belief in a higher power influence one’s behavior?