D1.4.6-8: How Supporting and Compelling Questions Strengthen Each Other
In plain English: D1.4.6-8 is the C3 Framework inquiry indicator for grades 6-8 that asks students to explain how the relationship between supporting questions and compelling questions is mutually reinforcing. Students show how a big question tells them which smaller questions to ask, and how the answers to those smaller questions build, and sometimes change, the big question.
Explain how the relationship between supporting questions and compelling questions is mutually reinforcing.
C3 Framework for Social Studies (NCSS) · Dimension 1: Developing Questions and Planning Inquiries · Constructing Supporting Questions · Official standard
An inquiry starts with a compelling question, a big question worth arguing about, and breaks it into supporting questions, smaller questions that sources can answer. D1.4.6-8 asks students to explain how the two kinds of question are mutually reinforcing: each makes the other stronger. The compelling question gives the supporting questions their purpose, and the answers to the supporting questions build the answer to the compelling question, and sometimes change it.
The topic is a vehicle for the skill. Students use three short government sources about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s: a National Weather Service account of the Black Sunday storm, a 1928 Department of Agriculture report on soil erosion, and a drought.gov page on the history of drought. They see how the question "Was the Dust Bowl a natural disaster or a human-made one?" picks its supporting questions and is then reshaped by their answers. They practice with an invented town market hall (Source 4) and an invented student's inquiry log about a bridge (Source 5, the quiz).
Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
Tell a compelling question from a supporting question, and say what each one does in an inquiry
Explain how a compelling question decides which supporting questions are worth asking
Explain how answers to supporting questions build an answer to a compelling question and can change it
Revise a compelling question based on what the supporting questions turned up
Prior Knowledge Required
Students should already be comfortable with:
Explaining how a question represents key ideas in a field D1.1.6-8
Citing specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources RH.6-8.1
"Your class must decide: Should our school have a longer lunch period? Write three smaller questions you would need answered before you could decide."
Collect questions on the board, such as "How long is lunch now?", "What would we cut to make lunch longer?" and "Do students have time to eat?" Then ask: "Could you answer the big question without these? Would you have thought of these questions without the big one?" Name the two kinds. The big question is a compelling question: a question worth arguing about, with more than one reasonable answer. The smaller ones are supporting questions: narrower questions that sources can help answer, and that together help answer the big one.
Direct Instruction20 minutes
Part 1: Two directions. D1.4.6-8 asks students to explain how the relationship between the two kinds of questions is mutually reinforcing, which means each one makes the other stronger. Draw two arrows on the board.
Down, from compelling to supporting: the big question tells you which small questions to ask. It gives them a purpose and keeps them on target. A small question that does not help the big one can be dropped.
Up, from supporting to compelling: the answers to the small questions are the building blocks of your answer to the big one. Sometimes they also show that the big question needs to change: to be narrower, fairer or more exact.
Diagram 1 shows both arrows for today's case. A strong explanation of D1.4.6-8 talks about both directions, not just one.
Part 2: The case. The topic is a vehicle for the skill. In the 1930s, huge dust storms swept the southern Great Plains, the flat grasslands in the middle of the United States, during the Great Depression, the hard economic times of that decade. The compelling question is: Was the Dust Bowl a natural disaster or a human-made one? It touches several fields: geography (land and weather), history (the 1930s), economics (farm losses) and civics (what the government did).
Words to know before reading: a drought is a long period with much less rain than usual. Erosion is soil being carried away by water or wind. Soil conservation means farming in ways that keep soil in place. A panhandle is a narrow strip of a state that sticks out, like a pan's handle. In Source 2, vegetative cover means the plants that cover the ground, cultivation means plowing and planting, rainwash is soil washed off by rain, a plot is a small test field, and the piedmont is hilly land at the foot of mountains. In Source 3, meteorological means about weather, agricultural means about farming, and tree ring archives are records of old weather read from the yearly growth rings in trees.
1The 1930s were times of tremendous hardship on the Great Plains. Settlers dealt not only with the Great Depression, but also with years of drought that plunged an already-suffering society into an onslaught of relentless dust storms for days and months on end. They were known as dirt storms, sand storms, black blizzards, and “dusters.” It seemed as if it could get no worse, but on Sunday, the 14th of April 1935, it got worse. The day is known in history as “Black Sunday,” when a mountain of blackness swept across the High Plains and instantly turned a warm, sunny afternoon into a horrible blackness that was darker than the darkest night. Famous songs were written about it, and on the following day, the world would hear the region referred to for the first time as “The Dust Bowl.”
2The wall of blowing sand and dust first blasted into the eastern Oklahoma panhandle and far northwestern Oklahoma around 4 PM. It raced to the south and southeast across the main body of Oklahoma that evening, accompanied by heavy blowing dust, winds of 40 MPH or more, and rapidly falling temperatures. [...]
[...]
3The blowing dust that blasted the High Plains in the 1930s was attributed not only to dry weather, but to poor soil conservation techniques that were in use at the time. In March 1935 (several weeks before Black Sunday), one of President Roosevelt’s advisors, Hugh Hammond Bennett, testified before congress about the need for better soil conservation techniques. Ironically, dust from the Great Plains was transported all the way to the East Coast, blotting out the sun even in the Nation’s capital. Mr. Bennett only needed to point out the window to the evidence supporting his position, and say, “This, gentlemen, is what I’ve been talking about.” Congress passed the Soil Conservation Act before the end of the year.
National Weather Service, Weather Forecast Office, Norman, Oklahoma, The Black Sunday Dust Storm of April 14, 1935: the summary and the "Dust Goes to Washington" paragraph (Source 1) (2026). US government work (17 U.S.C. 105). Source text.
1This circular is concerned chiefly with that part of erosion which exceeds the normal erosion taking place in varying degrees, usually at a slow rate, as the result of artificial disturbance of the vegetative cover and ground equilibrium chiefly through the instrumentality of man and his domestic animals. [...]
2[...] This part discusses only the evils of erosion by rainwash. Much damage is also done by wind erosion, but this phase of the problem is not treated here. [...]
3[...] The erosion station in the piedmont region of North Carolina measured from an uncultivated plot a loss of 24.9 tons of solid matter to the acre each year, when the rainfall was only 35.6 inches, as against a normal of 43.9 inches. On the same slope and soil the erosion from grassland that year amounted to only 0.06 ton to the acre. In other words, the grass held back four hundred and fifteen times as much surface soil as was retained on untilled bare ground. It held back two hundred and fifteen times as much soil as was retained in the cotton plots on the same soil, having the same degree of slope. The uncultivated plot retained 64.5 per cent of the rainfall, the cotton plot 74.4 per cent, and grassland 98.5 per cent.
H. H. Bennett, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Soil Erosion: A National Menace, three short passages (Source 2) (1928). Public domain (published 1928). Source text.
1The 1930s “Dust Bowl” drought remains the most significant drought—meteorological and agricultural—in the United States’ historical record.
[...]
2Drought is a normal climate pattern that has occurred in varying degrees of length, severity, and size throughout history.
3Tree ring archives indicate that agricultural droughts such as those that happened in the United States during the 1930s Dust Bowl era have occurred occasionally over the last 2,000 years, and climate model simulations suggest that droughts that may last several years to even decades occur naturally in the southwestern U.S.
[...]
4A 2017 study identified 13 major drought episodes—when 10 percent or more of the country is in drought—that affected the United States between 1900 and 2014. Of these, 11 covered 10 percent or more of the United States (excepting Alaska and Hawaii) for at least 90 percent of their duration. The three longest drought episodes occurred between July 1928 and May 1942 (the 1930s Dust Bowl drought), July 1949 and September 1957 (the 1950s drought), and June 1998 and December 2014 (the early 21st-century drought). Each of these drought episodes covered 60 percent or more of the contiguous United States at its peak and lasted 99 months or longer [...]
National Integrated Drought Information System (NOAA), Historical Drought: the opening paragraphs (Source 3) (2026). US government work (17 U.S.C. 105). Source text.
Part 3: Model both arrows. Think aloud through the examples below. After each one, ask the class which arrow it shows.
Down arrow: the compelling question picks the supporting questions
The compelling question has two halves, "natural" and "human-made." What supporting questions does it call for?
Result: One for each half: "What was the weather like on the southern Plains in the 1930s?" (natural) and "What happens to soil when its grass cover is removed?" (human-made). A third, "What did leaders at the time think caused the dust?", checks both. A question like "What color was the dust?" does not help either half, so it is dropped.
Up arrow: answers change the compelling question
What do the sources say about the first two supporting questions, and what does that do to the big question?
Result: Source 3, paragraph 4, says the drought lasted from "July 1928 and May 1942," and paragraph 3 says droughts like it "have occurred occasionally over the last 2,000 years," which points to nature. Source 1, paragraph 3, says the dust "was attributed not only to dry weather, but to poor soil conservation techniques," which points to both. "Natural or human-made?" now looks too either-or. A better compelling question: "How much did farming practices add to a natural drought?"
Up arrow: an answer shows what the next question must be
Source 2 is from 1928, before the Dust Bowl. What does it add, and what can it not tell us?
Result: It shows that experts already knew bare ground loses soil much faster than ground covered by grass. But paragraph 2 says it "discusses only the evils of erosion by rainwash" and that wind erosion "is not treated here." The Dust Bowl was wind erosion, so the answer leads to a new supporting question: "Did plowed land lose soil to wind the way it lost soil to rain?"
Sum up: the compelling question told us what to look for (down), and what we found made the compelling question better (up). That loop, again and again, is what "mutually reinforcing" means.
Guided Practice15 minutes
Pairs read Source 4, an invented class's plan for a civics and economics question. For each of the six draft supporting questions they decide: Keep or drop? and Which part of the compelling question does it help answer? Then they read paragraph 3 and explain which finding changed the compelling question, and why.
1An invented eighth-grade class in the invented town of Riverside chose the compelling question "Should Riverside reopen its old market hall?" The hall was built in 1910 and has been closed for 20 years. The class brainstormed six draft supporting questions.
21. How much would it cost to repair the hall, and who would pay? 2. What is the most popular color in Riverside? 3. What did the market hall do for the town when it was open? 4. Are there enough farmers and makers nearby to fill the stalls? 5. When was the hall built? 6. What do people who live next to the hall think about more traffic on their street?
3After a week of research, the class learned that repairs would cost about $400,000, that the hall once held 40 stalls, and that only 12 nearby farms and makers say they would rent one. (All of these figures are invented.) The class changed its compelling question to "Should Riverside reopen part of its old market hall?"
SVHS (invented scenario written for this page), The Riverside Market Hall Question (Source 4: an invented scenario for the guided practice). Original passage written for this page.
Teacher key.
Keep 1, 3, 4 and 6. Question 1 is about cost (economics). Question 3 is about what the hall did for the town in the past (history). Question 4 is about whether the town can fill the hall (economics and geography). Question 6 is about the neighbors who would be affected (civics). Each one helps decide "should."
Drop 2. The town's favorite color has nothing to do with the decision. The compelling question is what tells us to drop it: the down arrow at work.
Question 5 is background. The year is a fact that is easy to look up. It is fine to know, but it does not help decide "should" by itself, so it is a weak supporting question.
The up arrow: the class found that "only 12" farms and makers would rent a stall in a hall that "once held 40 stalls." The answer to question 4 showed that reopening the whole hall might leave most of it empty, so the class narrowed the compelling question to "part of" the hall.
Independent Practice15 minutes
Each student writes a paragraph of five or six sentences explaining how the Dust Bowl supporting questions and the compelling question reinforce each other. The paragraph must describe the down arrow with one example and the up arrow with one example, and cite a source paragraph for the up arrow. Frame for students who need it:
The compelling question helped me choose the supporting question "___" because ___. The answer to a supporting question, from Source __, paragraph __, changed the compelling question because ___.
Early finishers write one new supporting question about economics (for example, about farm families' money) and explain which part of the compelling question it would help answer.
Closure5-10 minutes
Exit ticket: On an index card, finish both sentences: "A compelling question helps supporting questions by ___." and "Supporting questions help a compelling question by ___."
Teacher note on the sources: Sources 1 and 3 are web pages of the National Weather Service and of NOAA's National Integrated Drought Information System (drought.gov), quoted exactly; the page for Source 1 also quotes song lyrics and 1935 newspaper articles, which this page leaves out. Source 1 says Congress passed the Soil Conservation Act "before the end of the year"; the act was in fact signed on April 27, 1935, less than two weeks after Black Sunday. The story of Bennett pointing out the window is a much-retold account; present it as the Weather Service's telling. Source 2 is from a 1928 Department of Agriculture circular by Hugh Hammond Bennett, the same Bennett who testified to Congress in Source 1, paragraph 3. Its figures are from rain-erosion test plots, not from the Dust Bowl itself, which is why Example 3 treats it as a starting point. Sources 4 and 5 are invented scenarios.
Quiz passage. Questions 10-16 of the quiz use Source 5, an invented student's inquiry log.
1Maya, an invented seventh grader, kept this log for her inquiry on the compelling question "Did the 1898 bridge help or hurt the town of Cedar Falls?" Cedar Falls and everything in this log are invented.
2Supporting question 1: How did people cross the river before the bridge? Finding: a ferry carried about 60 wagons a day, and it stopped running every winter when the river froze.
3Supporting question 2: How did the number of stores in town change after 1898? Finding: the town directory lists 14 stores in 1895 and 31 stores in 1905.
4Supporting question 3: Who lost out when the bridge opened? Finding: the ferry owner's family lost their business, and two stores on the far side of the river closed because their customers now crossed to the bigger town.
5New compelling question: "Who gained and who lost when Cedar Falls built its bridge?" Maya also added a fourth supporting question: "What happened to the ferry workers after 1898?"
SVHS (invented scenario written for this page), Maya's Inquiry Log: The Cedar Falls Bridge (Source 5: an invented scenario for the quiz). Original passage written for this page.
Differentiation Strategies
For Struggling Students
Give a copy of Diagram 1 with the arrows labeled "tells us what to ask" (down) and "tells us what we learned" (up), and have students write each example on the right arrow
Read Sources 1-3 aloud, stopping after each paragraph to ask "Does this point to nature, to people, or both?"
Let students sort printed supporting questions under the two halves of the compelling question before writing their own
For Advanced Students
Write a supporting question whose answer could make the compelling question unnecessary, and explain what that would mean for the inquiry
Explain why a 1928 report written before the Dust Bowl is still useful for a question about the 1930s, and what its limits are
Write two different revised compelling questions for the Dust Bowl and say which supporting answers each one depends on
Assessment Guidance
What to Look For
Strong work explains both directions: the compelling question choosing and focusing the supporting questions, and the supporting answers building or changing the compelling question. It uses a specific example for each and names the source. Watch for three errors: describing only one direction; listing supporting questions without saying how they connect to the compelling question; and keeping a supporting question that does not help answer the compelling question.
02
Classroom Activities
3 Activities
1
Keep, Drop or Background? Question Sort
15 minGroups of 3-4
Each group gets 11 cards, each with a possible supporting question for "Was the Dust Bowl a natural disaster or a human-made one?" Groups sort the cards into keep, drop and background (a fact worth knowing that does not help decide by itself). Each kept card goes under "natural," "human-made" or "both." The compelling question is the test for every card: that is the down arrow.
The 11 Cards
How much rain fell on the southern Plains in the 1930s compared with normal years?
Did farmers plow up more grassland in the years before the dust storms?
What songs were written about Black Sunday?
Have droughts like the one in the 1930s happened before?
What did Congress do about soil erosion in 1935, and why?
How fast does bare ground lose soil compared with ground covered by grass?
What was the population of Oklahoma in 1935?
What did farmers do differently after the Soil Conservation Act?
Who was president in 1935?
Were dust storms worse over plowed fields than over fields left in grass?
At what time did the Black Sunday storm reach each town?
Answer Key for the Teacher
Keep, natural: 1 and 4.
Keep, human-made: 2 and 6.
Keep, both: 5, 8 and 10. Card 10 is a strong one, because its answer compares the two causes directly.
Background: 7, 9 and 11. They are facts, but none of them helps decide natural or human-made by itself.
Drop: 3. Songs show how people felt, which is interesting, but not what caused the storms.
2
Question Chain
15 minPairs of pairs
Each pair writes a compelling question and three supporting questions on a new topic, then trades with another pair. The second pair writes an invented "finding" for each supporting question, labeled invented. The first pair gets its card back and decides whether the findings change its compelling question. Students feel both arrows in one round.
Compelling Questions to Choose From
Economics: "Should our school sell snacks to raise money for field trips?"
Geography: "Should our town plant more trees along its main street?"
History: "Was the invention of the bicycle good for small towns?"
Civics: "Should students help choose the rules for the school library?"
Teacher Model
Compelling question: "Should our town plant more trees along its main street?" Supporting question: "How much does a street tree cost to plant and care for?" Invented finding: "The town has money for only 20 trees a year." Revised compelling question: "Which part of the main street should get trees first?" The finding did not answer the big question; it changed it.
3
The Inquiry Wall
15 minWhole class
Post the Dust Bowl compelling question at the top of a wall or board. Students add supporting questions on blue sticky notes and, after rereading Sources 1-3, findings on green sticky notes placed under the questions they answer. The class then decides together whether the compelling question should be rewritten, and writes the new version above the old one without erasing it.
Rules for the Wall
Every blue note must say which part of the compelling question it helps with.
Every green note must name a source and paragraph.
Before a new compelling question goes up, at least two green notes must support the change.
Variation: Online Class
Use a shared slide with two colors of text boxes. Keep the first compelling question visible at the top so the class can see how far its thinking moved.
03
Diagrams & Visual Aids
1 diagrams
Diagram 1: The Two-Way Question Map for the Dust Bowl
Blue arrows point down: the compelling question decides which supporting questions are worth asking. Green arrows point up: the answers to the supporting questions build the answer to the compelling question, and can reshape it, as in the revised question at the bottom (Example 2). Students draw the same map for Sources 4 and 5.
04
Homework Assignment
~30 min
D1.4.6-8 Homework: Building and Testing a Question Map
Directions: Part 1 uses a new compelling question about an invented town: "Should the town of Maple Grove let food trucks park in its city park?" Part 2 returns to the Dust Bowl sources in Direct Instruction. Write in complete sentences, and for Part 2 name the source and paragraph you use.
Part 1: The Maple Grove Food Trucks (Problems 1-3)
Write three supporting questions for the Maple Grove compelling question, each from a different field (civics, economics, geography or history). Label each one with its field.
For each of your three supporting questions, explain in one sentence how its answer would help decide the compelling question.
Imagine one of your supporting questions turns up this invented finding: "The park has room for only two trucks, and only on weekends." Explain how this finding could change the compelling question, and rewrite the compelling question.
Part 2: Back to the Dust Bowl (Problems 4-6)
Write a supporting question about civics for the Dust Bowl compelling question that is not on this page. Explain which half of the compelling question (natural or human-made) it would help answer.
Source 3, paragraph 4, says the drought of the 1950s was also one of the three longest. Write a supporting question that compares the 1930s with the 1950s, and explain how its answer could change the compelling question.
Explain in four or five sentences, using your Maple Grove work as the example, what "mutually reinforcing" means for supporting and compelling questions. Describe both directions.
Rubric
Criterion
Full Credit (2 pts)
Partial Credit (1 pt)
No Credit (0 pts)
Supporting questions
Each question helps decide the compelling question and fits its field
Questions are on topic but one does not help decide
Questions are off topic or missing
Down arrow
Explains how the compelling question shapes or tests each supporting question
Explains the link for some questions
No link explained
Up arrow
Shows how an answer builds or changes the compelling question, with a rewritten question
Says the answer matters but does not show the change
No up arrow
Evidence
Names the source and paragraph in Part 2
Names a source without a paragraph
No source
05
Quiz: 20 Questions
Interactive, with answers
Instructions
Questions 1-4 and 19 use Sources 1-3 (in the Direct Instruction section). Questions 10-16 use Source 5, Maya's inquiry log (in the Closure section). The other questions give you everything you need. For each multiple-choice question, choose the best answer. For short-answer questions, write two to four sentences.
Multiple choice: pick an option to check it. Short answer: write your answer, then reveal the model answer.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Source 1, paragraph 1, says settlers "dealt not only with the Great Depression, but also with years of drought." Which new supporting question does this sentence suggest?
Answer: B
The sentence links money troubles (the Great Depression) to the drought years, which suggests asking whether hard times made the dust worse, a human-made side of the compelling question. A and C are details that do not help decide natural or human-made. D is about how people remembered the storms, not their causes.
Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Source 2, paragraph 3, says grass "held back four hundred and fifteen times as much surface soil" as bare ground. Which two numbers in that paragraph give this result?
Answer: D
24.9 divided by 0.06 is 415: the bare plot lost 24.9 tons per acre and the grassland only 0.06 ton. A compares that year's rain with normal rain. B and C are shares of rain kept in the ground, not soil lost.
Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Source 3 talks about drought and says nothing about how people farmed the land. What does that mean for the Dust Bowl inquiry?
Answer: C
Source 3 answers supporting questions about weather, the natural half of the compelling question, but says nothing about farming, so the human-made half needs sources like Source 2. A treats one half of the evidence as the whole answer. B and D throw away useful evidence.
Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice
A student uses Source 1, paragraph 3, to answer "What did leaders at the time think caused the dust?" and then rewrites the compelling question. Which direction of the relationship does this show?
Answer: A
The answer to a supporting question (what leaders thought) is changing the compelling question, which is the up direction. B would be choosing the question in the first place. C misreads the paragraph, which is about why dust blew. D is wrong: naming a law does not make it both directions.
Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice
A class's compelling question is "Should our city build a skate park?" Which supporting question does the compelling question tell the class to drop?
Answer: B
The inventor of the skateboard has nothing to do with whether this city should build a park, so the compelling question gives a reason to drop it. A, C and D each help decide "should": cost, location and the people affected.
Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which statement best explains "mutually reinforcing"?
Answer: D
Mutually means "each to the other," and reinforcing means "making stronger." The compelling question gives the supporting questions a purpose, and their answers build the compelling question. A reverses the usual order. B ranks one over the other. C confuses the two kinds of question.
Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice
An invented class asks the compelling question "Was the town's new library a success?" One supporting question finds that visits doubled but most visitors were adults. What is the best next step?
Answer: C
The finding shows that "success" may differ for different groups, so it sharpens the compelling question: the up direction. A wastes the finding. B treats one finding as a full answer. D throws away the inquiry.
Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Why is a compelling question hard to answer without supporting questions?
Answer: C
A compelling question is broad and arguable, so it has to be broken into smaller questions that sources can answer. A and B are false: compelling questions can be about today, and they have more than one reasonable answer. D is wrong: students answer them with evidence.
Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice
An invented geography class asks "Why do so many people in our county live near the river?" Its compelling question is "Should our county build new homes away from the river?" How does the supporting question help?
Answer: A
Knowing why people chose the river (water, jobs, flat land) is part of deciding whether new homes should go elsewhere. B overstates one answer. C is wrong: the past can explain the present. D does not follow.
Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 5, which supporting question mainly helps answer the "help" side of Maya's first compelling question?
Answer: B
Stores rising from 14 to 31 suggests the bridge helped the town's business. Question 1 describes life before the bridge, and questions 3 and 4 are about the "hurt" side.
Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice
By how much did the number of stores in Cedar Falls change between 1895 and 1905, according to Source 5?
Answer: A
31 minus 14 is 17, so the town gained 17 stores. B gives the 1905 total, not the change. C gives the 1895 total. D gets the direction wrong.
Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which finding in Source 5 most likely led Maya to change her compelling question?
Answer: C
Paragraph 4 shows that some people lost while the town as a whole gained, which turns "help or hurt?" into "who gained and who lost?" A and D describe the ferry before the bridge, and B shows only gains.
Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice
How is Maya's new compelling question different from her first one?
Answer: C
The first question treated the town as one thing that was helped or hurt; the new one asks who gained and who lost. A is false: it is the same town. B is wrong: the new question is still arguable. D is wrong: Maya adds a fourth supporting question.
Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Maya adds supporting question 4, "What happened to the ferry workers after 1898?" Which direction does adding it show?
Answer: A
The new compelling question asks who lost, so it calls for a question about the ferry workers: the down direction, working again after the up direction changed the big question. B mixes up the order. C is wrong: choosing a question is part of the relationship even before it is answered. D is false: the first question did not mention workers.
Question 15 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which paragraph of Source 5 shows the up direction most clearly?
Answer: D
Paragraph 5 is where Maya rewrites her compelling question after her findings, so it shows supporting answers changing the compelling question. Paragraph 1 states the first question; paragraphs 2-4 give findings that have not yet changed anything.
Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer
Use Source 5 to explain how Maya's supporting and compelling questions reinforce each other. Describe one example of each direction and name the paragraphs.
Model answer: Down: Maya's first compelling question, "help or hurt?" (paragraph 1), led her to ask about stores (paragraph 3) for the "help" side and about who lost out (paragraph 4) for the "hurt" side. Up: the finding that two stores across the river closed (paragraph 4) showed that the bridge helped some people and hurt others, so she rewrote the compelling question as "Who gained and who lost?" (paragraph 5). Then the new question led her to a new supporting question about ferry workers. Rubric: full credit for one correct example of each direction with paragraph numbers; partial credit for one direction only.
Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer
A weak sample answer to fix. A student wrote: "Supporting questions help answer the compelling question. That is what mutually reinforcing means." Explain what this sample leaves out, then rewrite it.
Model answer: The sample is weak because it describes only one direction, supporting questions helping the compelling question. "Mutually" means both ways: the compelling question also decides which supporting questions are worth asking, and supporting answers can change it. Rewrite: "The compelling question tells us which supporting questions to ask, and the answers to those questions build the answer to the compelling question and can change it." Rubric: full credit for naming the missing direction and a rewrite with both; partial credit for one of the two.
Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer
Write one new supporting question for Maya's new compelling question, "Who gained and who lost when Cedar Falls built its bridge?" Explain how its answer would help.
Model answer: "Did farmers on the far side of the river get better prices once they could cross every day of the year?" Its answer would show whether farmers were among those who gained, adding a group to the gained-or-lost list. Rubric: full credit for a question that fits the new compelling question and a clear explanation; partial credit if the link is vague.
Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer
Write a supporting question about history (how things changed over time) for the Dust Bowl compelling question, different from the ones on this page, and explain which half of the compelling question it helps with.
Model answer: "How did the way people farmed the southern Plains change between 1900 and 1930?" It helps with the human-made half, because its answer would show whether farming changed in ways that left more soil bare before the drought came. Rubric: full credit for a history question that is new and a correct half; partial credit if the question is not about change over time or the half is not explained.
Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer
Give an example from your own life or school of a big question that changed after you learned the answer to a smaller question. Explain which direction this shows.
Model answer: My family asked, "Should we get a dog?" One smaller question was "Who would walk it every day?" When we found that no one was home at midday, the big question became "Should we get a dog that can stay home alone, or a cat?" This shows the up direction: the answer to a supporting question changed the compelling question. Rubric: full credit for a real change caused by a smaller answer, with the direction named; partial credit if the change or the direction is unclear.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
06
Frequently Asked Questions
10 Questions
What does D1.4.6-8 mean?
D1.4.6-8 asks middle school students to explain how supporting questions and compelling questions strengthen each other. The compelling question decides which supporting questions are worth asking, and the answers to the supporting questions build the answer to the compelling question and sometimes change it.
What is the difference between a compelling question and a supporting question?
A compelling question is a big, arguable question with more than one reasonable answer, such as "Was the Dust Bowl a natural disaster or a human-made one?" A supporting question is narrower and can be answered with sources, such as "Have droughts like the 1930s one happened before?" Several supporting questions together help answer one compelling question.
What does "mutually reinforcing" mean?
It means each makes the other stronger. In D1.4.6-8 the compelling question gives supporting questions a purpose (the down direction), and supporting answers build or reshape the compelling question (the up direction). Students should describe both.
Is it a problem if the compelling question changes during an inquiry?
No. A compelling question that gets sharper because of what students learned is a sign the inquiry is working. On this page, "natural or human-made?" becomes "How much did farming add to a natural drought?" after students read the sources.
Why does the D1.4.6-8 lesson use the Dust Bowl?
The topic is a vehicle for the skill. The Dust Bowl question has two clear halves, nature and people, so it is easy to see how it calls for different supporting questions, and the government sources on the page answer those questions in ways that change the big question.
Are the sources on this page reliable?
Sources 1 and 3 come from federal agencies (the National Weather Service and NOAA's drought.gov), and Source 2 is a 1928 Department of Agriculture report by a soil scientist. They are strong sources for weather and soil, though each answers only part of the compelling question, which is one of the lesson's points. Sources 4 and 5 are invented for practice.
What mistakes do students make with D1.4.6-8?
Three are frequent: describing only one direction (usually supporting questions helping the compelling one); listing supporting questions without saying how each connects to the compelling question; and keeping a supporting question that does not help decide anything.
How should I grade students' explanations?
Look for a specific example of each direction, a clear link between each supporting question and the compelling question, and a source for any finding. The homework rubric scores these at 2, 1 and 0 points.
How does D1.4.6-8 connect to the other Dimension 1 indicators?
D1.1 and D1.2 are about compelling questions and D1.3 about expert agreement on supporting questions. D1.4 ties the two kinds of question together, and D1.5 asks students to choose the kinds of sources that will help answer both.
What does D1.4.6-8 lead to in high school?
D1.4.9-12 asks students to explain how supporting questions contribute to an inquiry and how, through work with sources, new compelling and supporting questions emerge. Students who can already describe both directions are ready to show how the sources themselves raise new questions.
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Related Standards
5 standards
These standards connect to D1.4.6-8: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.
Before this lesson
D1.1.6-8Prerequisite
Explain how a question represents key ideas in the field
Standard text: National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013). NCSS was not involved in the production of this lesson and does not endorse it.
