How *Not* To Ask Questions About A Novel

My kid and I just read A Wrinkle In Time. Well, I read it to him. And he’s six, so we used the graphic novel.

At the end of this version, there is a page of Discussion Questions. See how many of our recurring questioning problems you spot:

(I typed these out down at the bottom if you want to read them all.)

The Problems

• They’re all one-offs.
• There’s no scaffolding.
• There’s no movement up Bloom’s.
• They leap randomly from topic to topic.
• The author went with quantity rather than quality.

And, most of all, A Wrinkle In Time is an incredible book. These questions don’t do it justice.

While I’d love to break down the problems in each of these nine questions, let’s just take one and renovate it!

Renovating Question #2

Let’s pick Question #2 question, the one about the characters’ gifts.

If you’re not familiar with the book, Meg is the main character. She is stubborn, angry, and impatient. Her mentor, Mrs. Whatsit, gives her these faults as her “gift” to survive a confrontation with the villain, IT, who is a big brain. (Yes, this book is absolutely incredible.)

2. Before they confront IT, Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace are given gifts. Calvin’s natural gift of communication is strengthened, Meg is given her faults, and Charles Wallace is given the resilience of his childhood. What gift do you think you would receive from Mrs Whatsit?

Notice how this question doesn’t engage with the story?

It summarizes the kids’ gifts (snooze). Then it leaps straight to a fluffy question: “What would your gift be?”

This is fluff because I could write literally anything. “My gift would be a calculator because I like math.” “My gift would be a guitar because I play the guitar.” “My gift would be a unicorn because it would be cool.” Ugh.

This question ignores the most incredible thing about the gifts: Meg’s gift is her faults! How could you NOT ask about this? (😠 ok ok. phew. I’m settling down…). It glides right by a beautiful controversy (I wrote about building on controversy here).

Let’s Fix It

We’ll start simple and grow more complex at each step:

1. Meg’s faults become her strength. In this story, list moments where Meg’s faults are a problem. List times where her faults are a strength.
2. What characters in other stories (or people from history) used their faults as strengths?
   • examples could include Tony Stark from Iron Man, Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon, and Percy Jackson
3. Form a team of three characters from your list. Their faults must work together.
4. Describe how their faults complement each other.
5. Create a situation where this team triumphs as a result of their combined faults.
6. Turn this into a short story, a skit, or a comic book. (or whatever)

This sequence digs deep into the interesting idea that “a fault can also be a strength.” It’s so much better than just asking, “What would your gift be?”

Alternatively: A Big Idea

I might also go broader. We’re dealing with a paradox here. Two opposites that are true at the same time. Meg’s personality faults are also her deepest strengths.

Let’s consider other examples from across disciplines:

• A forest fire destroys, but also clears the way for new life.
• Sunlight provides essential vitamins, improves mood, causes plants to photosynthesize, but also causes skin cancer.
• Penicillin saves countless lives as an antibiotic, but can also cause life-threatening allergic reactions in some people.

After modeling the idea, we go into a classic, Hilda Taba-style concept formation lesson.

1. Class can we think of other dual-nature, opposites like this? (brainstorm a dozen or more ideas)
2. How could we arrange these ideas into a few categories? (Students work independently or in pairs to categorize the paradoxes).
3. Summarize your findings into a big idea.
4. Refer back to students’ big ideas as a appropriate (“Oh, you’re right Billy, this is another example of how “Destruction is a catalyst for creation.”)

I also wrote a whole article about how I’d approach a book study of A Wrinkle In Time.

The Nine Questions

Since the photo is hard-to-read, I’ve typed out the nine questions.

1. This graphic novel was adapted from a classic prose novel. Adaptations are very common—many movies and plays were originally books. What is unique about adapting a book into a graphic novel? How is it similar to adapting a book into a play or movie?
2. Before they confront IT, Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace are given gifts. Calvin’s natural gift of communication is strengthened, Meg is given her faults, and Charles Wallace is given the resilience of his childhood. What gift do you think you would receive from Mrs. Whatsit?
3. IT argues that everyone is safer and happier because IT controls them, but obviously, Camazotz is a very scary place. What do you think is the right balance between freedom and playing by the rules?
4. Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin rely on instincts to make many of their decisions. What do you think of this strategy? Do you trust your own instincts?
5. Many graphic novels represent three dimensions on a piece of paper—but this one had to represent two, three, and more dimensions when the children traveled via tesseract. What did you think of the illustrations of these hard to imagine concepts?
6. Meg tells IT, “Like and equal are not the same thing at all!” Do you agree? How do the ideas of “like” and “equal” differ?
7. Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin venture thousands of light-years from home to find Mr. Murry, and Meg returns to Camazotz alone to save Charles Wallace. How far would you go to save a family member? What if you weren’t sure you would succeed?
8. The Dark Thing is evil. Mrs. Which tells the children that some of the best fighters of evil have come from Earth. They list great people throughout history: Jesus, da Vinci, Shakespeare, and more. Who would you add to their list? What makes you choose them?
9. Meg’s advantage against IT is that she has love and IT does not. What types of love do you see in the novel? What strengths is Meg able to draw from loving and being loved?