Student Question
What are some level 2 questions for "The Earth Men" in The Martian Chronicles?
Quick answer:
Level 2 questions for "The Earth Men" involve analyzing and interpreting the text without requiring students to make judgments or predictions. Examples include: "How does Mrs. Ttt's reaction to the astronauts differ from what the captain expects?" and "What evidence leads the captain to infer that he and his men are in an insane asylum?" These questions require students to explain or infer meaning from the text, focusing on understanding rather than speculation.
I assume that you are talking about Arthur Costa's levels of questioning, as discussed in works like Developing Minds: A Resource Book for Teaching Thinking (see third link below).
According to Costa's ideas, a level one question asks students to retrieve facts or details from a text. The student doesn't have to interpret anything. The student is merely asked to find the desired information. Here are examples of a level one question:
- "What does Mrs. Ttt say the name of her planet is?"
- "Who kills the captain?"
Level two questions ask students to make sense of the information that they gather from the text. These questions often include words like why or how. They might ask the reader to analyze, compare, contrast, infer, or explain.
They differ from level three questions in that they don't ask students to make generalizations, judgments, or evaluations that force them to go beyond the text. They don't ask the reader to speculate, hypothesize, or predict (as would a level three question like: "How might the story have ended if Mr. Xxx had been accompanied by another Martian? Would it still have ended in murder and suicide? Explain your reasoning...").
So you're looking for questions that ask students to make inferences about what's said or depicted, but stop short of requiring them to apply the information to new or hypothetical situations.
Here are some examples of such level two questions:
- "How does Mrs. Ttt's reaction to the astronauts differ from what the captain believes is appropriate?"
- "The captain infers that he and his men are in an insane asylum. What lines of evidence lead him to conclude this?"
- "Why isn't Mr. Xxx's visit to the ship enough to convince him that it is real?"
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