I found this question on an old worksheet of mine:

What ❓ unanswered questions do you have about the story? Write at least two.

This one made me chuckle. I seem weirdly concerned about getting more than one unanswered question. I actually underlined and bolded that “s.”

Ok, we listed two questions!

So, what did I have my class do once they wrote their (at least) two unanswered questions?

I moved on to a completely unrelated, bottom-of-Bloom’s question.

What new 👄 vocabulary words are in the story. Write their meanings.

Yep.

My mistake was obvious

Can you imagine this conversation with an adult:

• Me: What questions did you have at the end of Inception?
• Her: Well, I’m dying to know whether they were in a dream or reality!
• Me: At least two questions, please.
• Her: Uh. Oh, okay. Well… I’m also wondering whether Leo will get to stay with his kids or not. What will their relationship be like now?
• Me: Thank you. And what were some new words you learned in Inception? And what do they mean?
• Her: (backs away slowly)

It seems obvious, but if someone tells me what they’re wondering about, I shouldn’t move on to another topic! I should ask more about the unanswered question! Rather than four, unrelated questions, I should have prepared a sequence of questions about one topic.

But this worksheet also has the larger issue of Vagueness Disease. It’s meant to work with literally any story. How can we ask thought-provoking questions if we don’t know the topic we’re asking about?

Give students the mystery

So, yes, I’d need to know what topic I’m asking about.

Then, I’m not going to ask students to list unanswered questions. I’m going to pick the juiciest, most tantalizing mystery. We’ll stick with Inception.

Now, I certainly don’t need to ask people to “List two unanswered questions” because the best mystery in this film is SO OBVIOUS.

Is Leonardo DiCaprio in a dream or not?

I, the teacher, pick the best unanswered question. Then, I build my task around that unknown. Since the mystery is so fascinating, we have lots of fun paths we could take.

• We might look for evidence about dreams versus reality from the film. What clues tell us when characters are in a dream versus reality? Then we could apply our findings to the ending.
• Or let’s wonder, “Was this the right ending for the movie?” We could write to writer/director Christopher Nolan, expressing our love or disgust for this ending. Or we could get in his shoes and imagine we’re justifying the ending to the studio execs.
• We could compare this ending with other ambiguous endings from films, books, shows, etc. Which ones are appropriate and which are just annoying? Can we make other categories for amiguous endings?

When we start with a truly interesting unanswered question, and build our task around that mystery, the end result will be so much better than my original:

What unanswered questions do you have about the article? Write at least two.

The purpose of the Unanswered Question prompt is not to list questions and then move on to the next icon. It’s to dig deep into a mystery.

But this lesson doesn’t have a mystery

Okay. So Unanswered Question works well with Inception. But that story has an amazing mystery. Today’s lesson doesn’t have any obvious, delicious unanswered questions. What do I do then?

Well. Just don’t use Unanswered Questions with that lesson! There’s no reason to use every tool from Depth and Complexity in a single lesson. I approach Depth and Complexity like a set of spices. And I’d never use every spice in my spice rack with one meal. That would be gross! So likewise, I’d want to only reach for Unanswered Questions if it fits the lesson I’m planning.

As my mentor liked to say, “Pick the perfect pair of prompts for this particular lesson.”