Open-Ended Questions for Informational (Nonfiction) Texts

• Does the author try to persuade you in any way? How?
• Can you identify the facts (explicit details)? The opinions (implicit details)?
• Do you find the author's evidence convincing? Explain.
• What new information did you learn? How can you apply this information to an issue or problem in today's world?
• How did this new information change your way of thinking about this subject?
• What words, phrases or statements does the author use that caught your attention? Why? How did they make you feel? What did they make you think?
• Did the author weave implicit (opinion) and explicit (fact) statements into the piece? Show me examples of each.
• Were there any photographs, illustrations, charts, graphs, or diagrams that were important? Explain why you believe they were important.
• Did the reading leave you with unanswered questions? What are these?
• How did you connect to the piece? Was it personal? Was it an issue that affects our community and/or the world? Explain.

· As you read this week, what did you learn that you did not know before? What surprised you? Explain why it surprised you?

· As you read, were any questions that you had answered? Share some of the questions you had and the answers that you came up with from the reading. Are you satisfied with what you learned? Why or why not?

· Did you come across a problem in your reading that you had not considered before? What was the problem? Was it solved? How?

· Are any of the real life situations or people that you read about similar to situations that you have experienced before? How were they similar? How were they different?

Open-Ended Questions for Fictional Texts

· In this week’s reading, did the setting or any of the characters remind you of people or characters in your own personal life? Were any of the situations or events similar to your own life? How were they alike and how were they different?

· Does this story or its characters remind you of another story you have read? Does it remind you of a movie? How are they alike? And how are they different?

· If you could change the setting in this story what would you choose? Would you change just the time period? Or would you change the place, the season, the actual environment? Why would you make those changes?

· If you were to put this story into your own life, in the area where you live, around the people and friends that you know, how would the story have to change? How would the people change? Would the setting have to change? Why would these changes have to take place?

· Sometimes we are pulled toward one or two characters in the story. We identify with them or feel sympathy for them. With which characters do you identify in the book, and why do you think that is?

· Now that you are this far into the story, what do you look forward to learning next? What conflicts or problems do you think the characters will face? What traits of your character (honest, loyal, cruel, dishonest, angry, vengeful) will affect how the character handles the problems and conflicts he or she encounters?

· If you could ask any character a question, what would you ask? If you could ask the author a question, what might that be? Explain why you chose these questions.

· As you read this week, what surprised you? Explain how this will affect the story or how it changed your thinking about the story.

· What do you wish to learn when you read again tomorrow; what do you hope will happen in the story or to the characters? Why do you wish for that to happen?

· Are you puzzled or confused about anything in the story? What is it that confuses you, and why do you find it confusing?

· Why do you think the author wrote this story? Where did he or she get the idea or the characters? What message do you think that the author is trying to share?