What the Heck Kind of Question is That?

             

            A question, by its very nature, invites or assumes responses.  That is why questions are such powerful tools for learning and developing ideas. By asking questions, we enhance the speed, quality, and quantity of our learning.  But not all questions are alike: the better our questions, the better the answers.

            Questions are often triggered by the wh words: who, what when, where, why, and how.  Yes, and how.  Originally, how was spelled and pronounced whow.  Questions can also start with words such as do, can, are, is, were, if, and has, but, as you will soon see, questions triggered by these words do not generate quite the same quality of responses as the wh words do.

            To effectively ask and field questions, let’s distinguish several kinds:

(1) Good questions

                        (2) Key questions

                        (3) Unfair questions

                        (4) Yes/No questions

                        (5) One-answer questions

                        (6) Rhetorical questions

Good Questions

            “Why are our hearts on the left instead of the right side of our human bodies?”  “Why do supermarkets place toothbrushes at adult eye level and not alphabetize soup cans?”  “How do Christians argue for the existence of God?” “Why do some people become alcoholics?” “How can we save the ozone layer?”  “What might cure Alzheimer’s disease?” “What happened to Uncle Frank so that no one in the family talks about him?”  These are examples of good questions.  Students of language notice that good questions tend to

ü  Respond to an important human need

ü  Are focused and specific

ü  Promote thought

ü  May question popular beliefs

ü  Invite multiple, often conflicting answers

ü  Lead to other questions

ü  Suggest how they might be answered

ü  Lead to good answers

ü  Elicit an aha response

ü  May cause strong emotional responses

ü  May meet with resistance

ü  Can lead to collaborative work for answers

ü  Make us respond with “That’s a good question!”

            For example the question “How might we preserve the ozone layer?” is a good question because it responds to an important human need—to health of planet earth.  The question makes us think, has more than one answer, and leads to other questions about the environment.  The question has led to good answers by people who have collaboratively pursued answers to the question.  It isn’t a trick or unfair question.  It leads people to say, That’s a good question. Whether in a classroom, lab, conference room, assembly, or family table, good questions generate lively discussions and promote inspiring challenges.

Key Questions

            The key question driving this post is “What the heck kind of question is that?”  If we were to formulate key questions for the Bible or the Koran, they might be “Who is God?” and “How can we best serve God?”  Whether or not questions are explicitly posed by an author, as readers, formulating key questions for the text will help us to read more deeply.  For the most effective texts, the key questions are the good questions.  When the good question is not explicitly posed, here are some ways to formulate them for what we read:

ü  Posit a point of view of the author

ü  Identify a purpose for why the author might be writing

ü  Choose what seems to be an important purpose

ü  Formulate this purpose as a wh question

            As a writer, articulate your own sense of why you are writing a particular piece. Ask yourself these questions:

ü  Why am I writing this?

ü  What do I hope to discover in my writing process?

ü  Who am I addressing as my ideal reader?

I find that whenever I am at a stopping point in a particular piece of writing,

I turn my most recent sentence into a question to relaunch my flow.  So, for example, I

will turn my previous sentence into a question:  “If I come to a stopping point in a particular piece of writing, how might I relaunch my flow?”

Unfair Questions

            “Are you still beating your dog?” “What’s the difference between a duck?” “How come someone says they saw you did it?” “You don’t want another piece of my pie, do you?” “What is it like to be blown up by a bomb?”  These and other such questions are unfair because they

ü  Assume something illegitimately

ü  Are meant to trick responders

ü  Often exact only one answer

ü  May be unanswerable

ü  Antagonize and confront

ü  Lead or manipulate

          For example, the question “Are you still beating your dog?” is unfair because

it assumes that you beat your dog in the first place.  You can’t win.  If you say “Yes,” then you are admit to beating your dog.  If you say, “No,” then you still admit to having beaten your dog.  The question is confrontational and antagonistic.  In a

court of law, the opposing counsel would object that it is a “leading question.” A fairer

approach would be to first ask, “Have you ever beaten your dog?” 

            In an earlier blog, “Martha and Mary,” I had originally asked an unfair question:

“How are your teachers more Martha than Mary?”  That assumed that your teachers were more Martha and Mary.  When a responder pointed out it was a leading question, I revised it to “Are your teachers more Martha or Mary?”  

 

            Some questions might be unfair because of the context in which they are asked.

For example, it could be unfair and embarrassing to ask a person, “Is that a new hair dye?” at a formal dinner.  But it can be entirely appropriate for a hairdresser to ask this question of a client in the salon. 

            How you phrase a question is crucial.  The question “What happened to

Uncle Frank?” may be a good question, whereas “What did you do to Uncle Frank?”

is not.  The question “What’s the difference between a duck?” is nonsensical.  But when comedian Grouch Marx asks it, the question isn’t unfair—it’s funny.

Yes/No Questions

            “Is there an afterlife?” “Have you gone to the store?” “Are there moons around

Jupiter?” “Will there be enough ozone layer left at the end of the twenty-first century?” “Should there be an extra microphone for the event?” “Can you loan me some money?”  Such questions are yes/no questions because they invite just that—yes or no.  They

ü  Begin with some form of the words is, can, do, has, could/would/should,

or will

ü  Do not invite discussion or collaboration

ü  Limit the range of acceptable responses

ü  May be too general

ü  Can be unfair, given the context

One-Answer Questions

            “How much is 2 + 2 in the decimal system?” “What was the cause of the Civil

in America?” “Who is the main character in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales?” “What

is the most important trait of a responsible thinker?” “Would any sane person ever

want to kill an innocent child?”  Or, my favorite question to avoid asking students: “What is the main point of this text?” Such one-answer questions

ü  Assume there is only one right answer

ü  Occur most often in courses focused on information, not thinking

ü  Create a guessing-game atmosphere

ü  Can be satisfying to answer “right,” embarrassing to answer “wrong”

ü  May create corrosive competition

ü  May preclude questioning the question’s validity

            For example, the question “What as the cause of the Civil War in America?” assumes, by the use of the word the, that there was one and only one cause of the war.  Similarly,  the question “What is the main point?” may shut down creative and critical thinking. If the questions were posed by a teacher in a class, it could create a “guess what the teacher’s thinking” game. Some students would settle for guessing, others might compete to be the first to say.  Students who don’t want to play, might give up, feel defeated, retreat into boredom, and sneak their phones.

Rhetorical Questions

     “Would you starve the children?” “How many people lost their lives to overdose?” “What more could we have done to save them?”  Sometimes answers to such questions are meant to be so obvious—No, countless, nothing (respectively)—that the questions are not meant to be answered.  They assume a particular answer and are used to affirm agreement.

            If a question is not a request for an answer but a strategy to persuade an audience of a predictable answer and point, it is called a rhetorical question (as the word rhetorical means “meant to persuade”). Rhetorical questions

ü  State, don’t ask

ü  Are often used in rousing speeches and texts

ü  Are meant to impress

ü  Make a point without stating it

ü  Imply one acceptable answer

ü  Preclude an answer

ü  Manipulate

            Notice that context—purpose and audience—determines whether a question is rhetorical.  A villain might ask “Would you starve the children?” as a request for an accomplice to do so.  A writer seeking statistics to support an argument for research on drug-use is not merely posing a bemoaning rhetorical question when asking “How many have died in this epidemic?” A Red Cross volunteer asking, “What more could we have done to save them?” is posing a good question, not merely a rhetorical one.

Explore Questions

            In your classes, notice what kinds of questions are favored in class, and in assessment instruments such as essays and tests.  Learn to discern what the heck kinds of questions your teachers are asking and, if they are not asking good questions, how you might turn discussions to asking them, yourself.  Here are some procedures you might take:

1.     Remind yourself: The only dumb question is the one not asked.

2.     Use the wh words: Who, What, When, Where, Why, (W)how

3.     Analyze select questions by asking

a.      What the heck kind of question is this? Good, key, unfair,

            yes/no, one-answer, rhetorical, undetermined?

b.     What kind of response does this question anticipate?

c.      How could I revise this question into a good question?

4.     Formulate key questions for authors and in your own writing

5.     Practice answering anticipated questions

6.     Ask questions throughout your learning and writing process

7.     Repeat for questions in other important areas of your life: family, relationships, financial, spiritual, professional, et al.

Works Cited:

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