Sample Questions to Process Literature

What do you want to share?

What do you think will happen next?

How do you feel about?

What are you learning from the story?

What are you learning about the way each character feels about each other?

Do you think each character will change in the story?

How is a character like you? How would you like to be like a character? How are you different than the character? How would you like to be different than the character?

How would you want each character to change? Why?

How do you think the character felt? How do you think the character felt when...? What caused you to believe that?

How would you feel if that happened to you?

What caused the character to make the decision they did?

What caused the characters to be together for the story to happen or take place? Could this happen in real life? Could this happen in your life?

What caused you to admire the character? or What caused you not to admire the character?

What scene did you like best? What did you like about it? How did the author help you to better understand the scene?

How did the character show (caring, kindness, fairness, ...) What did the character do or the author say to cause you to believe that? Why do you think the character did that or why the author had that happen?

What are the advantages with being able to ... (have someone to care for, make choices, have freedom, being able to do something, ...) What are the disadvantages?

How do authors make characters seem real?

What would you like to ask the character? What do you think the character’s answer would be?

What do you think was important in the literature? Why was it important for...? What could have happened differently? How would that have changed the story or the character?

How would life be different for the characters in the story after the events in the story.

Is the way the character lives different than the way you live? What do you think about that difference. Would you want to visit the place the character lives? Would you want to live at that time, place, or manner? Why?

What differences did the characters have? How were these differences celebrated or how did the differences create a conflict?

Robert Sweetland's Notes ©