Aarhus University Seal

A question exercise for opening and analysing texts

Short description

The activity

The students learn to identify and formulate relevant questions to a text and to apply these to open a text for understanding and analysis. Moreover, the activity trains the students in writing a coherent text on the basis of their answers to the questions.

The course

The objective of the course is for the student to learn to define relevant philosophies of science and to analyse the scientific philosophical and methodical frameworks of the research and works of the science of history and related traditions. Moreover, the student acquires the ability to assess the applicability of various theoretical and methodical approaches in relation to specific issues.

Teacher's motivation

New students need to practice fundamental study tools, including the ability to ask relevant questions to texts with a view to creating an opening for understanding and analysis, as well as academic writing skills. This activity combines training in the use of both these tools.

Description of the activity

The activity

The activity may be used in all courses that have written elements and in which the students need to practice how to use relevant questions to get to understand texts. The exercise may be run as group work, possibly combined with individual work, and structured on the basis of the amount of time available to you as a teacher.

  • Prepare in advance a number of questions for the text the students will work on in class. Prepare different open-ended and closed-ended questions with minor or major variations.
  • Divide the students into groups and distribute the pool of questions among them or show these in a Power Point slide.
  • The students must then select three questions and discuss in groups why they chose these and not others. They should also discuss why these are good questions and how they may make the text accessible for comprehension and analysis.
  • The students then move on to answering the questions in the group.
  • Finally, the students combine their answers, writing individual coherent texts. They are advised to include references to and quotations from the text. This text may be used as a point of departure for their written exam.
  • The activity may be followed up in different ways. Either the two groups can present their selected questions to each other, including their reasons and answers, and then discuss in each group any differences and similarities. Or each group can present the questions they selected and give reasons why in class, followed by a class discussion of the possibilities of the various questions.

Variation options

  • Who formulates the questions may vary, and also how the questions are formulated: You may vary the number of questions and who prepares them, depending on how far into the semester you run the exercise. One progression option may be that during the first three weeks you prepare three questions for the students. Then you prepare a large pool of questions which will prompt a discussion as to how different formulations of questions offer different opportunities to access a text. At the end of the semester, following repeated discussions of questions about texts, the students may formulate the questions themselves.
  • Let it vary how the students write their answers: In this activity you may want to switch between group work and individual production. Group work promotes collaboration skills, while the individual writing process allows everyone independent space to develop their own writing skills.
  • Focus more on academic writing skills: The students can read each other’s texts, give feedback and weed out colloquialisms and non-academic expressions. Then review all the texts in class and help the students to reflect on their own written language.

Outcome of the activity

The exercise increases the students’ awareness of how to analyse theoretical texts academically and gives them an opportunity to reflect on their own academic writing skills. At the same time, the activity prepares the students for the exam as it exemplifies how an exam question may be approached on the basis of syllabus texts.

Worth considering

Progression towards greater independence is important, and repeating and varying the exercise during the semester may be helpful in this respect. I have also found it helpful to divide the students into different groups at each session to ensure that they received different input. In addition, it is a combined exercise which, with a minimum of preparation time, enables the students to practice different tools and techniques and is therefore well suited for classroom instruction by student teachers.  You may want to supplement the exercise with a presentation made by you regarding questioning techniques and academic argumentation, or you may encourage the students to seek knowledge themselves on academic argumentation at Studypedia.


Basic information

  • Faculty: Arts
  • Degree Programme: History
  • Course: Studium Generale
  • Study level: BA
  • Course size: 15 to 25
  • Teaching method: Small class teaching
  • Extent: Activity 
  • Primary type of activity: Discussion
  • How the case was conduted: Campus teaching

Learning objectives

The students learn to identify and formulate relevant questions to a text and to apply these to open a text for understanding and analysis. Moreover, the activity trains the students in writing a coherent text on the basis of their answers to the questions.