 My name is Lynxit Chesnakas, teach 12th grade humanities and today we'll be doing the question formulation technique. I think of the QFT as a thinking strategy. And what students are going to be doing is preparing for a stochastic seminar tomorrow where they're going to be discussing questions that they created today. And I'm not going to be doing any of the generating questions that all that work is on them. And they're also going to be using those questions to help them break down the writing process when they get to their final assessment for the book that we're about to finish reading which is called The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wilde by Juno Diaz. So let's get right into it. Group 1 and 2, this is your Q-focused junior thinks that Trujillo treated the Dominican Republic like it was his plantation and he was the master. This may look familiar to you from the book. Group 3 and 4, this is your Q-focus. Fate controls lives. We just have to accept that. All right. Ready, set, go. Five minutes. Who was Trujillo? Remember to write down questions exactly as stated? Yo, where is T from? His name is T now. T? Where's T from? T. Where's T from? Of course T. What's all? Who controls fate? I think he exaggerated. You can't discuss it. How did he become so powerful? It's okay. So does he have any kids or relatives? Oh, what relation had junior with Trujillo? Another minute. Keep going. Oh, that is a good question. Yeah, thank you. We're going to try to get a couple more questions out. What are open-ended questions? Open-ended questions require an explanation. It cannot be answered with yes or no or with one word. Thank you. Okay, so go to it. You have a minute to classify your questions, okay? And if you're not sure, ask your partners. If you're not sure, ask your group members. What controls fate? Is that a closed-ended or open-ended? Because you can't answer it. You can't answer it with open-ended questions. Because you can't really answer it with a yes or no answer. Closed is yes or no, right? Yeah. I'm thinking, I'm talking in one word. Does fate exist? That's closed. How does this shape, instead of putting how, just put does this shape? So that's a yes or no. Because it's open-ended. Wait, I don't like what that sounds like. What are some good things? Some advantages of a closed-ended question. Meaning one that can only be answered with a word or yes or no. Say to the point, you have to answer like that. How about the disadvantages? Some not-so-good things about closed-ended questions. Meaning questions that have one word answers or yes or no. Some disadvantages, Kenny. You don't give enough detail. You don't give enough detail? It's not really saying anything. It's not really saying anything? You just have a bunch of follow-up questions. If I have one question that just sets you up to answer all of those questions, then that would be better. So what you're going to do in the next two minutes, you're actually going to manipulate your questions now. Choose one closed-ended that you labeled with a C. Make it open by either adding or taking away a word. Then choose an open-ended question. Make it closed. Close it off. You could take away, add a word. So just choose one of each. So choose one closed, make it open. Choose one open, make it closed. Okay? So take three minutes to decide what your three most important are. Deliberate, circle them, and then write down why you chose them. Okay? I would have liked the three best questions. I think we should choose the two that we switched in a different one. So does fake control lies? Yeah, does fake control lies and why does fake control lies in different ones? I like what are some of the examples. Yeah. Yeah, but we need to... But without... We need to find out what... We need to find out if fate exists to find out all the recipes questions. Oh, that's what... Nah, but that is a part of the question. Does fake control lies and do... really do... And why does fake control lies? Does fake control lies? Well, why does it control lies? And seek, determines lies. How do you determine fate? So we could do those things. What is the historical significance behind that? These three are closed, but it's good to have one over one just to find out why this is important, why this is so important in the way you treated Dominicans in the book. And you talk about... It's okay if there's some disagreement here. If you're like, I really like this one, but you like that one, you can talk about why. All right? Because you're going to want to write down on the back of your chart paper why you chose those three. And then you're going to share that with a small group that had your same cue focused in a few minutes, okay? And the sharing out piece... Well, I think there's two purposes to that. One is it gives other groups ideas. I think that, you know, it continues that creative process and it makes them realize, wow, they all have something to contribute because no group asks the same question. And I also think it's a public recognition move on the teacher's part, my part, because it's like, look, you guys have just done this really hard work. You've just generated your own questions. And typically that's my role as a teacher. Because you need to know what to ask, when to ask, how you ask it, what kind of question you need to ask, like open or close. Pushback is sometimes because students aren't used to doing that thinking in other classes. And then they come here and you see the transformation. They take ownership of the questions that they created, more than the ones that I created for them. The QFT is part of that transition process from being maybe disempowered to feeling like, wow, I can actually do this. I have the confidence to ask questions when I need to. And lastly, how does learning to ask your own questions make you feel? Like when you're doing the process of question asking, how are you feeling? Yeah. I feel more confident asking my questions. Sometimes when I have my questions, I'm always like, oh wait, I have a smart question when I ask the open question. Doing this, you actually think about your questions before you actually ask them. Well, learning how to ask your own questions can teach you to think. I feel like I can make right decisions. So I think make decisions help you to make right decisions. That's how I feel. It challenges me. No question, no matter how small it is, whether it's a close question, open question, it's really not a dumb question. That's really my main thing that I learned from it. I've learned the best thing you can really do is just keep on asking questions.