A teacher sent me a sequence of questions about the story My Father’s Dragon.
- Based on what you’ve read so far, what is one word you could use to describe Elmer? What from the story made you choose this word?
- Think of other books you’ve read. What character from another story you know is similar to Elmer? Describe how that character is similar to Elmer.
- Do you admire the character trait you thought of for Elmer? Why or why not?
They had purposefully stuck with one idea (character analysis) rather than jumping around. So we have a nice build-up that focuses on one thought.
First, Clarify
First, I’d simplify the wording of the questions. Just an edit for clarity. It’s important to have another person read questions before serving them to students. Your colleague down the hall will spot something that you could improve. (I call this testing my soup and wrote about it more here.)
| Original | Clearer |
|---|---|
| Based on what you’ve read so far, what is one word you could use to describe Elmer? What from the story made you choose this word? | What one word best describes Elmer? |
| Think of other books you’ve read. What character from another story you know is similar to Elmer? Describe how that character is similar to Elmer. | What character from another story is similar to Elmer? |
| Do you admire the character trait you thought of for Elmer? Why or why not? | Do you admire the character trait you thought of for Elmer? |
At this point, I’ve removed extraneous words. I can just cut “Based on what you’ve read so far.” I do not need to write “Explain why.” I wrote about that here.
Next: Connecting The Questions
I noticed that Question 1 sets up the “describe with one word” idea. I thought that the follow-up questions should build on that one word. So, Question 2 (Q2) could become, “What other characters could have this same word applied to them?” This change makes Q1 flow into Q2 .
Then, Q3 would build on what Q2 has set up. If I ask students to name another character, I need to follow up about that second character. And this should also build on the “one word” idea. For Q3, I’d want to explore that the two characters are not the same, even though the same word may apply.
Final Version
So I’d have:
- What is one word you could use to describe Elmer?
- Think of another character who could be described with the same word.
- Suppose the second character believes they are quite different from Elmer. Write a short paragraph from their perspective explaining why they think a different word describes them better.
I know I’m on the right track because I’m pretty excited to hear what students come up with for Q3. I’d love to read the ranting of an outraged character who has been misjudged!