The teacher also uses invitational stems to enable the thinking skill to be
performed:
•“As you recall... .”
•“As you consider... .”
•“As you reflecton... .”
Positive presuppositions assume capability and empowerment:
•“What are someof the benefits you will derivefrom engagingin
this activity?”
•“As you anticipateyour project, what will be some indicatorsthat
you are progressing and succeeding?”
2.The questions engage specific cognitive operations, as previously
described in the three levels: data gathering; processing; and speculating,
elaborating, and applying concepts.
3.The questions address content that is either external or internal to the
person being addressed.External content might be what is going on in the
environment around the student: lesson content, another student, a proj-
ect, or a playground or home experience. Internal content might be what
is going on inside the student’s mind: satisfaction, puzzlement, frustra-
tion, thinking processes (metacognition), feelings, or emotions.
Te a c h e r s c a n c o m p o s e p o w e r f u l qu e s t i o n s b y p u t t i n g t h e s e t h r e e e l e m e n t s
together. Each question should have an invitational stem, a cognitive
operation, and content (see Figure 8.2).
Here are examples of rich, complex questions:
•“As you reflect on what you’ve learned in this unit, what addi-
tional questions are you curious about?”
•“As you compare this project with others that you have done... .”
•“How might you sequence these events in such a way as to... ?”
•“What led you to these inferences about your performance’s
success?”
•“In what ways might your emotions have influenced your deci-
sions about... ?”
144 Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind