Seventh Grade · Writing · week 10

Narrowing a Topic into a Research Question

Narrow a broad medieval-history topic into one focused, answerable research question.

Research writing explains a topic to inform a reader, built from real sources, rather than persuading a reader like last unit's essay did. A broad topic -- "the Silk Road" or "the Black Death" -- is too big for a short report. A good research question narrows that topic to something specific and answerable: not a yes/no question, not something answered in a single sentence, but not so huge it needs a whole book either.

Narrowing a topic works like this: start broad, ask what specifically you want to find out, then test candidate questions against two things -- can this be answered with a few solid sources in a few weeks, and is this genuinely interesting to you? A question that fails either test needs more narrowing, or more widening.

📋 For the teacher
Teach it (10–15 min):
  • Brainstorm three or four medieval topics together before settling on one -- genuine curiosity makes the whole project easier to sustain.
  • Test every candidate question out loud: "could I answer that in one sentence?" If yes, it needs to grow. "Would answering that take a whole book?" If yes, it needs to shrink.
  • Connect the topic choice to what your child is already studying in history this year so the research reinforces content instead of competing with it.
  • Write the final question somewhere visible -- it becomes the spine the whole project hangs on for the next eight weeks.
Talk about it:
  • Why is a yes/no question too easy to be a strong research question?
  • How did you narrow your topic down to one specific question?
  • What makes your chosen question genuinely interesting to you?

Mastery looks like: They narrow a broad medieval-history topic into one specific, answerable research question that is neither yes/no nor too large for a short report.

Common stumbles: Choosing a question that is really a whole book's worth of topic; choosing one that is a simple factual lookup with no real "how" or "why" to explore.

Homework for this lessonType it, write it with a stylus, or print it for pencil & paper.open →
Records attendance + 15 min of Writing for this learner.
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