When I walked into the Voorhees Middle School library that morning, 20 objects were arranged throughout the space, relics from another technological era. An opaque projector, a fax machine, filmstrip projectors, old video cameras, a 1980s Nintendo Game Boy, a typewriter, and more—each labeled with a number, each waiting.
As I observed, the librarian and teacher handed out fresh inquiry journals to students so they could capture questions and track their thinking. The instruction was simple: “Look at the objects. Write down your questions. That’s all.” No rubric. No prescribed order. Just an invitation to wonder.
Students drifted into small clusters. A 6th grader pressed chunky buttons on an old device, marveling, “These actually push in.” Students compared a 1980s video camera to their phones, wondering why anyone would carry something so heavy.
The room hummed with conversation, but no one was off-task. The teacher and librarian roamed, asking questions that deepened thinking: “What makes you say that?” “What else are you noticing?”
These weren’t students performing curiosity for a grade. They were genuinely wondering.
An invitation to be curious is a powerful thing. But this wasn’t magic, it was design. The students at Voorhees weren’t more curious than students anywhere else. What was different was the system around them, a framework called Guided Inquiry Design (GID) that transforms curiosity from a fleeting spark into a sustainable process (Kuhlthau et al., 2012). Grounded in decades of research about how people actually learn, how we respond to uncertainty, and how inquiry unfolds through predictable emotional and cognitive stages, GID shows that when experiences are intentionally structured to sustain inquiry, curiosity thrives. But in most classrooms, that isn’t what students encounter.
These weren’t students performing curiosity for a grade. They were genuinely wondering.
Why We Lose Curiosity
By 5th grade, many students will go an entire two-hour period without asking a single question. Developmental psychologist Susan Engel (2011) found “astonishingly low” rates of curiosity and question-asking in elementary classrooms, with kindergarteners already showing signs of decline and 5th graders often remaining silent. The preschoolers who once bombarded adults with “why” became students who stopped wondering aloud.
It isn’t that children lose the capacity for curiosity. School structures often crowd it out. Compliance over exploration. Correct answers over interesting questions. Coverage over depth. The message is clear: Wondering takes too long, and we have standards to meet. By middle school, student questioning has fallen off a cliff, dragging motivation and engagement with it.
Underneath that, researcher Carol Kuhlthau (2025) uncovered something deeper. We aren’t just discouraging questions, we’re rushing past the process that generates them. Meaningful inquiry unfolds through distinct phases before students can formulate a focus worthy of investigation. It starts with uncertainty, what Kuhlthau calls “the beginning of learning.” Students then move through optimism, followed by frustration and doubt, before finally settling into a clear direction. These phases aren’t obstacles to avoid; they’re essential stages of sensemaking.
Yet most projects skip straight to “pick your topic” on day one or two. We ask students to commit to a research question before they’ve had time to explore what genuinely intrigues them. When we rush this process, students procrastinate, lose interest, and cut-and-paste answers in compliance mode without understanding them. These were findings that students themselves reported in Kuhlthau’s studies.
Here’s the paradox: We say we want curious, engaged learners, but we design experiences that bypass the phases where curiosity actually develops. The hopeful news is equally clear: If inquiry follows a structure, we can intentionally design for it. Voorhees Middle School offers a powerful example of what that design can look like in practice.
A student captures questions in her inquiry journal during the open phase, connecting personal wonderings to classroom learning. Copyright © 2026 Leslie Maniotes. Used with permission.
A “Curious” Case Study
Stacey, a librarian, and Rachel, a 6th grade teacher, noticed what many middle school educators see: students rushing through research, cutting and pasting information they barely understand, producing surface-level work that satisfies a rubric but sparks no real learning.
To deepen and sustain students’ curiosity, these educators turned to Guided Inquiry Design, a framework built on Kuhlthau’s research about how inquiry unfolds (Kuhlthau et al., 2012; 2015). After rigorous training, Stacey and Rachel spent three years implementing and refining the GID process across multiple teams and sections, reaching more than 300 6th graders each year by embedding the process within core ELA instruction, where it served as the primary structure for meeting grade-level research and informational text standards. The GID process unfolds through a series of phases designed to move students from initial wonder through final evaluation and reflection (see below). Let’s circle back to Stacey and Rachel’s students to see Guided Inquiry Design in action.
©Guided Inquiry Design®. Used with permission.
Open: The Invitation to Wonder
That morning in the library was the “open” phase of GID. Its purpose wasn’t to teach content; it was to spark authentic questions students didn’t even know they had.
And it worked. Students hypothesized, compared, and marveled, capturing questions in their inquiry journals. Neuroscience helps explain why this matters: When curiosity is activated, the brain releases dopamine, which not only makes the experience pleasurable but also primes the hippocampus to retain information (Gruber & Ranganath, 2019). The students examining those old devices weren’t just engaged; their brains were preparing to learn.
Immerse: Building the Foundation for Questions
Back in the classroom, journals held questions but no answers yet. Over the next five days, Rachel and Stacey led learning experiences around what innovation means across time, cultures, and disciplines. Days centered on collaborative inquiry circles, where students searched for inventors across health, transport, and engineering; watched “science of innovation” videos; discussed curated readings; and added interests to a shared board.
The journals became thinking tools. Harry noticed escalators appearing repeatedly in his notes. Claire kept returning to innovations related to beauty, connecting to her mother’s work making lipstick. Swarg, already curious about Roman military history, became more interested in the Corvus, an ancient naval boarding device. By day five, patterns formed naturally.
Explore: Informed Curiosity in Action
When students returned to the library, they came with context, language, and emerging interests. Stacey spread invention books throughout the space and provided links for digital exploration. The instructions remained simple: Look for what interests you, mark up images, record sources, screenshot articles, make notes in your journal.
Claire kept returning to questions about lipstick: “I always wondered how people really made lipstick and where it started.” The immersion gave her permission to treat an everyday object as worthy of serious inquiry.
For Swarg, the Corvus was already a blooming fascination. “I was watching a historical documentary about the Punic Wars and it piqued my interest. I knew I was going to research this.” Even with a clear focus, the “explore” phase mattered: “I did not have the necessary amount of information, and I needed more of the details, including how they came up with the Corvus and the tactics.”
Students moved between books and websites, individual exploration and small-group discussion, testing emerging interests against available resources, noticing gaps, recognizing when they needed to know more.
Identify: Committing with Confidence
After multiple days of exploration, students faced a key decision: Choose a focus. But this wasn’t the uninformed “pick a topic” that typically happens on day one or two. Students reviewed journals, pages of documented thinking, and camera rolls full of markup. They could see their own curiosity trail.
The structure made the choice manageable: List three possibilities, verify that at least one book and one electronic source exist for each, then commit. If students struggled, Stacey or Rachel met with them to review journals and discuss interests.
The resulting topics reflected genuine, informed curiosity: the evolution of the escalator, the cultural history of lipstick, the Corvus as naval innovation, the history of hair dye, the typewriter’s relationship to the printing press. These weren’t list-pulls or generic projects; they were questions that mattered to the individual learners.
Gather: Metacognition and Growth
Because students had practiced research moves during “immerse” and “explore,” they entered the “gather” phase with tools like databases, note-capture strategies, and inquiry logs. They also hit “productive struggle”—the moment many projects fall apart.
Claire learned keyword searching:
It was tough to find correct words that would work. I got help and learned how to use keywords, so I think that really helped with research. . . . We would do a little at a time—find stuff from one article one day, then more from another. It helped because we wouldn’t have to do it all at once, which could be tiring.
Claire explained how curiosity sustains itself, not through relentless pushing, but through manageable increments that prevent overwhelm. Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman’s (2012) research on neuroplasticity helps explain why this matters. Learning doesn’t happen primarily in the struggle itself, it happens during reflection afterward when the brain consolidates and rewires. The journals, the pauses to document thinking, and the structured reflection time were when learning became lasting.
Create: Agency Over Expression
When it came time to demonstrate learning, students chose formats aligned to content, audience, and strengths.
Swarg created a newspaper, The Roman Times, with articles explaining what the Corvus was, how it was used, and why it fell out of favor. Harry made a film tracing the escalator’s evolution, including diagrams, images, and patent details. Claire produced a podcast-style interview on lipstick’s history, from Cleopatra to modern chemistry and kitchen experiments. The personal connection to her mother’s lipstick-making gave the research an authentic purpose.
These three weren’t exceptional outliers; they represented typical student work. Across 300 students, 300 unique topics emerged from the history of pizza to why roller coasters are safe. The range was stunning, not because “anything goes,” but because curiosity had taken hold.
Share and Evaluate: Reflection as Learning
Harry captured something essential: “The most interesting part is once you had all your information and you’re using it . . . because it’s satisfying.” That satisfaction wasn’t about being done; it was about seeing curiosity through to completion.
Rachel, their teacher, noticed something remarkable:
Students begged me to present their work. Usually, telling students they have to present is met with fear and anxiety, but instead it was met with excitement because these students were proud of their accomplishment and confident in their knowledge of their topic.
The impact extended beyond the unit. Students who completed GID in 6th grade returned in 7th to say how much more prepared they felt to research. They developed metacognitive awareness, understanding their process, knowing when they needed more information, and recognizing when to pivot.
“The students were thoroughly engaged and extremely curious,” Stacey reflected. “Sometimes it’s simple items and activities that can spark an interest.” Student engagement emerged not just from one day in the library but from an entire system—carefully sequenced, intentionally designed, grounded in research—that transformed a spark into sustained learning.
Curiosity sustains itself, not through relentless pushing, but through manageable increments that prevent overwhelm.
Essential Design Moves for Curiosity
The Voorhees case study reveals three core principles for sustaining curiosity. Teachers across disciplines and grade levels can start here.
1. Scaffold experiences before asking students to identify a focus.
Students need structured time to become curious, build schema, and test emerging interests against available resources. Exploration is what leads to informed topic choices based on genuine curiosity.
How to begin:
- Collaborate with your school librarian as a partner for designing and teaching inquiry.
- Start units with objects, images, sounds, or provocations that create pause. In a civil rights unit, play era music without explanation. In science, show mysterious images without labels. Give students journals and ask: “What do you notice? What do you wonder?”
- Design a 3- to 5-day learning experience where students encounter your topic through different lenses—primary sources, contemporary connections, diverse perspectives. What you immerse them in, they will have questions about. Provide journals to document emerging interests.
- Give students structured time to explore multiple possibilities in the library. Ask them to document three things that catch their attention, then verify that sources exist for each. Create space for peer discussion. Only after exploration do they commit to a focus area.
2. Normalize uncertainty and build reflection throughout.
In Kuhlthau’s model, uncertainty is the beginning of learning. When students understand that being “stuck” is a normal part of the process, they stop performing and start thinking deeply.
How to begin:
- Share Kuhlthau’s phases or the GID process explicitly, explaining that uncertainty leads to focus and inquiry takes time.
- Build in routine reflection from day one. Use journals, turn-and-talks, or exit tickets, asking, “What are you curious about?” and “What connections are you making?”
- At the unit’s end, use these same tools to ask, “What did you learn about yourself as a learner?”
3. Honor who students are by connecting inquiry to lived experience.
Curiosity becomes durable when it connects to identity, interests, and community knowledge. Students take ownership of topics that feel personally meaningful (Maniotes, 2005).
How to begin:
- Invite and welcome students’ funds of knowledge (family stories, community practices, personal hobbies).
- Offer multiple modes of expression (podcast, video, article, exhibit board) so students can match form to purpose.
- Treat everyday objects and experiences as worthy of scholarly attention (lipstick, escalators, local innovations).
Beyond the Spark
Curiosity isn’t a spark we hope ignites by chance. It’s a system we can intentionally design. When we honor the process that curiosity needs—time to explore, space to wonder, support through uncertainty, and connection to identity—students move from doing school to doing genuine thinking. Don’t rush the early phases. The investment pays off in the quality of questions students ask, the ownership they take, and the metacognitive awareness they develop.
Reflect & Discuss
What structures (e.g., journals, objects, library time, inquiry circles) could you introduce to help students generate questions?
How do you respond when students are uncertain or stuck—as if it’s a problem to fix or a phase to support?
