Compelling questions are the heart and soul of an inquiry created with IDM. A good compelling question is relevant for students and rigorous in that it represents content important in the disciplines. When you know you content, it gain be pretty easy to write questions. Returning to our example of the Civil War, you might ask, What caused the Civil War? or What were the outcomes of the war? You probably know the answers, so the interesting aspects of those questions are embedded in your thinking about them. The war was "caused" by a series of interconnected and complex events and trends, all animated by the ongoing struggle over slavery. But for kids, that question is not so interesting. They don't know what you know. We need to find an entry point for them; something engaging and relevant for their condition and respectful of what they know at this point in time--before they have learned the content.

The teachers who developed the inquiry on Uncle Tom's Cabin came up with a pretty cool compelling question, Can words lead to war? We think that sings. It relevant to kids. After all, they've probably heard that the idiom sticks and stones can hurt my bones but words will never hurt me. But, maybe that's not so true - words cut. We've all had that experience. Kids are trying to navigate all of this, so the question sort of meets them where they are. This compelling question is also rigorous. Needless to say, historians really care about the causes of the Civil War!