Teaching Questioning Strategies and Materials

The ability to wonder, be curious and ask  probing questions is at the heart of Harkness teaching. This page has links to a variety  of articles and materials designed to teach students to ask good questions. The “Game of Questions” and the “Four Levels of Questions” handout is an excellent resource  to use with students.


Materials from the Right Question Institute (Google Doc)
Handout:Clarifying and Probing Questions (Google Doc)
Sri Pocket Guide to Probing Questions (Google Doc)
Cultivating Curiosity by Deliberately Teaching Students How to Ask Questions (PDF)
How to Ask Deeply Probing Questions: A Short Guide for Teachers (Google Doc)
How to Teach Students to Ask Better Questions: A Guide (Google Doc)
Probing vs. Clarifying Questions slideshow designed by Harkness student leaders (Google Sheets)
Digging Deeper / Asking Probing Questions in Harkness (Google Doc)
Bloom's Taxonomy with Verbs for Questioning (PDF)
Webb's Depth of Knowledge (JPG)
Action Words for Questions with Bloom's Taxonomy (Google Doc)
Bloom's Taxonomy and Questioning Verbs (Google Doc)
Sample Questions for Each Level of Bloom's Taxonomy (Google Doc)
Teaching Students to Ask Productive Questions (Google Doc)
Teaching Students to Ask Rather than Answer Questions (PDF)
Q-Cards-2019 from Book of Questions (PDF)
“Hot Seat’ Activity with Sentence Stems (Google Doc)
Conversational Questions (Google Slides)
The Game of Questions - Excellent Resource (Google Doc)
Four Levels of Questioning Guide (Google Doc)
Levels of Questioning: Laws of Sparta (Student Sample) (Google Doc)
4 Levels of Questioning: The Odyssey Books 1 and 2 (Google Doc)
Famous Person's Activity to Teach Questioning Skills (Google Doc)
Top Five Activity (JPG)
Writing and Evaluating Questions (Google Doc)
Math Sentence Stems
Talk Moves- Sentence Stems used in 9th grade (Google Doc)
Sentence Stems For Meaningful Dialogue In The Classroom (Google Doc)
Simplified List of Sentence Stems (Google Doc)
Additional Sentence Stems (Google Doc)
Handout Sentence Stems For Meaningful Conversation In The Classroom (Google Doc)
Create Your Own Sentence Stems (Google Doc)
List of Sentence Stems for Building comments at the Table (Google Doc)
Comments that Propel the Discussion: Practicing Sentence Stems (Google Doc)
Sentence stems slide show (Google Slides)
BETTER QUESTIONS Lesson Plan: Writing and Evaluating Questions (Google Doc)
BETTER QUESTIONS Digging Deeper /Asking Probing Questions (Google Doc)
Students engaging in the Harkness methodology