Seminar Question Writing Guidelines

The following table serves to guide teachers in understanding the types of questions that guide good seminars and how to write them. Good seminars follow the general structure given by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren in their classic How to Read a Book published by Simon & Schuster in 1972. Column one gives the four main questions that a demanding reader should ask of any book. These questions guide the types of questions and the purpose of each type used in good seminars. The last column serves to illustrate questions that might be asked of The Declaration of Independence, The Gettysburg Address, or Hamlet. This table could be easily adapted for any work of fine art like a painting or a musical score.

From How to Read a Book

Adler & Van Doren (1972)

| Question Type | Purpose of Question Type | Sample Seminar Questions

Answers to Be Supported from the Text

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What is the book (work) about as a whole? | Opening | Identify main ideas | What is the most important word or phrase in the Gettysburg Address?

Which title to you prefer: Revolutionary War? War of Independence? or War of Succession?

How would you state the plot of Hamlet in one to three sentences?

What is being said in detail and how? | Analytical | Root out main ideas, assertions, and arguments | What is the most important point Lincoln makes in the Gettysburg Address?

Is the assertion "All men are created equal" self-evident? If so, why? If not, how could you rewrite it so that it is?

What evidence is there that Hamlet overheard Polonius talking to the King? What evidence that he did not? What do you think?

Is the book (work) true, in whole or part? | Evaluative | Make and support judgments | Why does Lincoln say that those gathered cannot hallow the ground? Is he right?

Are life, liberty, and happiness really rights? Why? Why not?

How does Hamlet succeed in creating an experience in audience members about the meaning of life? Of action? Of inaction?

What of it? | Closing | Relate judgments about ideas to one's own life | Do you think the Gettysburg address has helped preserve the nation to the present day?

What do the words of the Declaration of Independence teach you? Have they changed you? How?

Which character in Hamlet do you identify most with? Least with? Why?