7.12.A
The Standard
generate student-selected and teacher-guided questions for formal and informal inquiry
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English Language Arts and Reading
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students turn a topic or problem into focused questions they can investigate. They create their own questions and build from prompts supplied by the teacher. They adjust wording and scope for quick or extended inquiry.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students can produce several clear, open-ended questions about a topic. They can narrow or expand a question and explain whether it fits a quick search or a longer research task.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may write topics instead of questions, such as “school uniforms.” They may rely on yes-or-no questions, make questions too broad, or copy the teacher’s wording without adding their own thinking.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Choose one school issue and write an open-ended question about it. Then complete the teacher stem, “How might our school...” with a different researchable question.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs topic cards and question cards to sort as too broad, too narrow, or researchable, then revise one weak question.
Ask students to write three questions they would ask before deciding whether phones should be allowed during class.
Play Question Ladder: teams turn a yes-or-no question into three increasingly focused, open-ended questions.
Have students choose a local news story and draft questions they could ask a reporter, resident, or city official.
Keep exploring
Related Standards
- 6.12.A
generate student-selected and teacher-guided questions for formal and informal inquiry;
- 8.12.A
generate student-selected and teacher-guided questions for formal and informal inquiry;
- 4.13.A
generate and clarify questions on a topic for formal and informal inquiry;
- 3.13.A
generate questions on a topic for formal and informal inquiry;
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