The table of questions
60 min · 60 minutes planned
Question banks are only paper until someone asks well. This session turns lists into conversations: participants practice asking, following the answer instead of the list, and leave with a short, personal question list for one real person in their life.
Any group. Especially useful for hospice volunteers and family members preparing to interview a specific elder, and for anyone facing a holiday table they'd like to turn gently toward stories.
By the end of the hour
- Every participant practices asking questions and following the answer rather than the list.
- The group can use the two universal follow-ups — "what happened next?" and "what was that like?" — without prompting.
- Every participant leaves with a five-question list chosen for one specific, named person.
The session, minute by minute
Welcome and the premise
Norms, then the premise: a question list is a map, not a route. The best interviewers ask one question, then follow the person, not the paper. Today is practice at abandoning the list well.
Tour of the question banks
Hand out the printed collections and let people browse: questions for a parent, a grandparent, a spouse, a veteran, someone with memory loss, a child, the holiday table. Ask each person to mark two questions they'd genuinely want answered — not "good questions," wanted ones. The difference is the whole craft.
Demonstration interview
Facilitator interviews a volunteer in front of the group: one question from the banks, then visibly follow the thread — "what happened next?", "what was that like?", "who else was there?" — and let the list sit ignored on the table. Afterward, ask the group what they saw. Someone will notice the list was abandoned by the second minute. That's the lesson; let them say it.
Trios: asker, teller, noticer
Groups of three, rotating every six minutes or so, so everyone plays each role once. Asker asks one question from the banks and follows the answer. Teller answers as much or as little as they like. Noticer has one job: spot the moment the list should have been abandoned — the flicker where the teller's voice changed and a follow-up would have opened a door. Thirty seconds of noticer feedback per round, kind and specific.
Build your list
Each participant names one real person — their mother, the resident on their Tuesday visit, the last elder of the family — and chooses five questions for them, in an order that starts easy and warms up. Concrete before deep: "the house you grew up in" before "what are you proudest of." Write the name on top of the list. A named list gets used.
Close: the holiday table
How to bring questions to a family table without making it weird: never announce an interview; ask one question over the dishes, aimed at the eldest, and let the table do the rest. "Grandma, what was your mother's kitchen like?" beats a form every time. Preview session five honestly: it's the tender one, about remembering people we've lost, and everything in it is optional.
Materials
- Printed question banks — the collections at /resources/questions are made for this
- Index cards and pens for the personal five-question lists
- A visible timer for the trio rotations
- Tissues within reach
The gentle moments
What to expect in the tender minutes of this session, and how to meet them. Read this part twice.
A question will land on a wound — an estranged child, a dead sibling, a divorce. The pass rule does its real work here: any question can be declined without explanation, and the asker's job is to move on without a flicker. Model that in the demonstration if you can.
Some tellers go long, and the trio format strains. Teach gentle timekeeping that doesn't cut a story's heart: let the current story land, then "hold that thought for your recording — I want to hear the end properly." Never cut someone off mid-feeling to serve a schedule.
Watch the noticers: some turn critic. Re-aim them at the good — "name one moment the asker followed well" — so feedback builds askers up rather than grading them.
Next: Session 5: Remembering together · or back to the full curriculum. Questions or training conversations: [email protected].