I recently ran a workshop on Guiding Questions for my teacher peers. While the aim was to teach fellow educators how to support English as Second Language (EAL) students across disciplines, I thought later that this tip may also be handy for writers. So, I dedicate this blog to teaching it to you.
What is Guiding Questions?
A literacy technique to help international and migrant students access complex readings, Guiding Questions is part of the Teaching in English in Multilingual Classrooms (TEMC) course which I recently had the pleasure of completing.
The technique consists of two types of questions – implicit and explicit – aimed to guide readers to important information and clarify ambiguities. It also teaches educators to consider the hybrid identity of the students before creating questions.
Hybrid Identity
The first step in this process is to know the students. Consider their cultural background, languages spoken, education experience and personal interests to tailor questions to them – the audience – specific.
Implicit Questions
Next, teachers first create implicit questions by considering the general information that the students may not ready know and their hybrid identity. For example, if the text is set during the holocaust, teachers should ascertain how much the students know about this disturbing history and create questions to help them familiarise themselves with related key words, important to understand the content of the text. Considering the audience’s hybrid identity will ensure the questions do not contain triggers or offend. An implicit question might look like this: What effect did the holocaust have on Jews and the world?
Explicit Questions
After that, teachers create specific-to-text questions that again consider the hybrid identity of the students to engage them. Explicit questions are directly related to the themes, issues and ideas of the text and should be created to help students identify the meaning of what the teacher will assess them on later. An example of an explicit question might be: What language is used by the writer of this text to show that Jonah’s character is a product of his holocaust experience?
How Can Guiding Questions Help Writers?
If it is not yet apparent, this technique can be useful to us writers to not only better know our audience but also to ensure we are catering for its needs. By creating a hybrid identity and implicit and explicit guiding questions, even before we begin our stories, we can better target our intended audience. Think about it. By closely profiling our audience and then asking ourselves, in the form of guiding questions, what they don’t know generally and what they need to know specifically to access our text, we are eliminating loose ends, clarifying our message and meeting the specific needs of our target audience.
Of course, my disclaimer is that this technique is not specifically designed for writers and is not supported by any writer experts. However, it is widely respected as a reading and comprehension technique so sounds very relevant to me.
