Costas Levels of Questioning

One who asks a question is a fool for five

minutes; one who does not ask a question
remains a fool forever.
Chinese Proverb
Objectives
Students will learn the concept of
higher order thinking.
Students will practice formulating
questions of increasing complexity.
Students will reflect on how
questioning skills can help them learn.
Opening Levels
Knowledge Comprehension
Define Restate
Repeat Label
List Identify
Describe Summarize
Recall Paraphrase
Core Levels
Application Analysis
Use Analyze
Practice Differentiate
Diagram Revise
Contrast Experiment
Construct Generate
Closing Levels
Synthesis Evaluation
Combine Debate
Organize Conclude
Judge Interpret
Predict Justify
Measure Argue
An Analogy
There are one-story intellects, two
story intellects, and three-story
intellects with skylights. All fact
collectors, who have no aim beyond
their facts, are one-story men.
Two-story men compare, reason,
generalize, using the labors of the
fact collectors as well as their own.
Three-story men idealize, imagine,
predict--their best illumination
comes from above, through the
skylight.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Opening Questions
Levels 1 and 2 are like the ground floor:
the foundation of a building. They contain
important information you need to have,
such as definitions, numbers, or formulas.
The answers can be found in the text or other
sources
Very concrete and pertains to the text
Asks for facts about what has been heard or read
Information is recalled in the exact manner/form
it was heard
Core Questions
The answer can be inferred from the text
Although more abstract than Level 1 and 2
questions, they deal only with the text
Information can be broken down in parts
Involves examining in detail, analyzing motives
or causes, making inferences, finding
information to support generalizations or
decision making
Questions combine information in a new way
Closing Questions
The answer goes beyond the text
Is abstract and does not pertain to the text
Ask that judgments be made from
information
Gives opinions about issues, judges the
validity of ideas or other products and
justifies opinions and ideas
Provoke discussion of abstract ideas or issues
Practice
Read the article Women and Gender Roles
in the Antebellum South.
On a clean sheet of notebook paper, write
one question relating to the article for each
of the six levels of questioning.
The title of the assignment is Antebellum
Women: Levels of Questioning.
After you have written your questions, we
will use them to facilitate discussion.