Wonder

She'd tap the wide top of her funnel. "That's your BROAD INTEREST. Dinosaurs! Awesome!"

Then she'd point to the narrow bottom. "But 'dinosaurs' isn't a research question. You can't just research 'dinosaurs.' It's like trying to drink the whole ocean at once."

She'd flutter her wings. "You need a question that's clear. A question that's exact. A question you can actually find answers for."

"That's what the funnel does," she'd explain. "It helps you make your question investigatable. You can't research everything. But you can research one specific thing."

Wonder always made one thing very clear. "The funnel isn't about stopping your curiosity," she'd say. "It's about making your curiosity work."

She'd hold up her diagram. "Your big interest in dinosaurs stays! You just pick one small piece of it. That's for this research project. Other pieces can wait for other projects."

Wonder had a simple way of doing things. She called them her "funnel steps."

First, she'd say, "Start with your BROAD INTEREST." She'd tell kids to list everything they were curious about. No idea was too silly.

"Next, think of 5 to 10 NARROWING QUESTIONS," she'd advise. "These are more specific. Maybe you're interested in T-Rex. So, a narrowing question might be: 'What did T-Rex eat?' Or, 'Where did T-Rex live?'"

Then came the important part. "Check each question," Wonder would say. "Can you actually find books or articles about it? Is the question clear? Does it already guess the answer?"

"Pick ONE question," she'd tell them firmly. "Just one for now. The others can be for later."

Finally, she'd add, "You might need to change your question a little as you learn more. That's okay! It's just trying again. It's not messing up."

Wonder grew up in a small village. Her family had a very special job. They were the village's "question-collectors." Each season, they gathered all the questions the villagers had for the council.

The council couldn't deal with a question like, "What should we do about everything?" That was too big. They needed questions they could actually do something about.

Wonder learned this early. When she was just six wren-years old, a farmer came to her parents. "My crops aren't growing!" he cried. "What's wrong with the dirt?"

That was a broad interest. Wonder's parents helped him narrow it. "Which crops?" they asked. "Which field? What kind of dirt is it? When did they stop growing?"

After many questions, they found the real problem. The farmer had planted a new type of seed in very rocky soil. The council then knew what to do. They helped him find better soil for those seeds.

Wonder saw that narrowing questions was a gift. It helped the council. It also helped the person asking the question. It made problems solvable.

When Wonder was twenty-two, she walked to ResearchQuest. This was a special place where the best researchers worked. A wise old owl, Scholar, met her.

"What is question-formulation?" Scholar asked. His voice was deep.

Wonder stood tall. She pulled out her diagram. "It's BROAD INTEREST," she chirped. She pointed to the wide top. "Then NARROWING QUESTIONS." She moved her wing down the funnel. "Then RESEARCH QUESTION." She tapped the very bottom.