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Writing Good Questions: The One Trick You Need to Know

When students turn in poor-quality work, it’s very easy (and tempting) to blame the students. We’re out here doing our best every day, right? Yes, of course we are! But . . . sometimes we think we are being clear, especially in our expectations, and really, we aren’t. Writing good questions for assignments? Not so easy! Once you move beyond who-what-where-when to why and how, things get a lot more complicated.

Now, before you think we’re attacking hard-working teachers, let’s get something clear: Most students (let’s be real, most humans) tend to exert the minimum level of effort needed to complete a task. And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing – we don’t have the time, energy, or resources to go above and beyond on every. single. task.

This universal human truth can become frustrating, though, when students turn in poor quality work on what we thought was a good assignment or earn low scores on a quiz we thought they were well-prepared for.

For multiple years, in our AP Literature class, we were frustrated by our students’ consistently poor performance on reading quizzes. In our minds, we had perfectly reasonable expectations: the questions came from the homework and discussion, we had a common point breakdown to ensure fair scoring, and everyone knows a good short-answer response includes evidence and explanation, right?

When we began to look more closely at what we were asking students, however, we saw we were holding students to expectations we hadn’t explicitly outlined for them. We were assuming they would know the characteristics of a good short-answer response.

Take a look, for example, at this question from a Pride and Prejudice quiz:

What motivates Mr. Collins to seek a wife from among the Bennet girls?

Score Breakdown (5 points):

  • To make amends for inheriting their father’s house and fortune (2 points)

  • Because it’s appropriate and Lady Catherine said to (1 point)

  • Reasonable explanation/evidence (1 point)

  • Evidence that it has nothing to do with feelings for the girls themselves (1 point)

While we thought this was a fairly straightforward question, most students earned 2-3 points, and almost no one earned the full five.

Upon reflection, we didn’t make clear our expectations for how they should answer the question. The first two points weren’t unreasonable, but students would have benefited from knowing we wanted more than one motivation. While many English teachers would argue it’s reasonable to expect students to provide an explanation and evidence, what does that look like here? Elaboration? A quotation? An example? Students didn’t have access to the text or their notes, and this was a timed situation: most students can’t afford to write overly detailed responses “just in case.”

Our lightbulb moment for writing good questions: use the answer key to make sure all parts of your expected response have been elicited from the wording in the question.

The most unfair expectation, however, is the last one. We were likely looking to differentiate thorough and superficial responses. But no wonder no one got that point! There is nothing in the question to suggest to students this is a necessary detail to include.

All the points we outlined in our answer key were explicitly addressed in the text, so the information we wanted was not unreasonable, but the way we elicited that information wasn’t explicit at all. We thought we had been writing good questions, but what we were doing was writing good answers and too vague questions.

We realized maybe the key to writing good questions was working backward. We did, after all, want students to provide the information in our answer key, so when we used it to help us rewrite the question, we ended up with this:

Identify at least two reasons Mr. Collins is motivated to seek a wife from among the Bennet girls. Why might a modern reader be surprised by what Mr. Collins does not appear to take into consideration? Provide at least one specific detail from your reading to support your response.

The clearer we began to make our questions, the more improvement we saw in students’ scores. And when students didn’t improve, it was easier to see who genuinely needed help or reminders to keep up with the reading. As in any productive working relationship, we can’t expect others to read our minds: asking directly for what we want increases the odds that everyone will be happy with the results.

Writing good questions does take time and practice, but if you ever find yourself in the head-scratching position we did, reconcile your question and answer key. Were you actually as clear as you thought you were with your expectations? If the answer is no, you know what to do.

We don’t just rely on writing good questions. We also think it’s really important to write good directions, too. If you’d like to hear us talk more about how we got specific with our student directions, check out our podcast and YouTube video.

Consider sharing a quiz question you’d like to revise at your next Professional Learning Community or, if you’re brave, posting online about one that didn’t work and needs some help. Be sure to tag us if you do!