Quest questions
What is the most important thing or event in the topic?
Does it have any parts or steps?
Does it have a beginning?
Is there a result or outcome?
What other things have similar parts, steps, beginnings, or results?
Similes, Team Study
Each team member brings three answers to the quest questions. The answers may be of various types:
your best answer,
your wildest answer,
your funniest answer,
the answer you would most like to give on the test,
the answer the teacher would laugh at,
the answer that would most surprise the teacher,
the answer that the smartest person in the class would give.
All answers are typed, with no names. Mix them in a can. Draw one at a time.
Decide which type it belongs to, how it scores in that type, and whether it would be useful in review. The team can also try to guess the author.
Semi-Structured Brainstorming: Stick all the answers on the wall, arranged by types. Take the type that has the fewest answers and think of enough new answers to beat out all the others.
Team Study for Parents.
Answer the quest questions in your head. Pick the ones you think are most useful for this topic.
Give your child a list of the quest questions. (You may want to use Semi-Structured Brainstorming here.)
Ask the child to check the easy ones and circle the hard ones. Explain that you will help with the hardest questions after the child has done a personal best.
After the child has marked the list, pick a checked item and ask why it is easy. Then pick a circled item and ask why it is hard. Compare the two answers.
This comparison may help the child see an answer to the quest question. If not, give your answer and your best explanation as to why the circled item was hard. (You don’t have to be right.)
Continue with other circled items.