To provoke thinking in a critical and creative way learners need to probe the text by the way of the design questions. By gaining insight into different genres, formats and individual examples of texts, learners need to consider them as designs and read them accordingly. Furthermore, when teaching reading or writing, the teacher should take into account their responsibility to guide students to use the design questions as a tool to understand and produce works of literature. Chapter four, Acts of Design, discusses the implications of the design questions in a formal and informal context. Perkins asserts that a teacher may foster active learning by a way of design.
Intrinsic motivation is a key element in the act of design.
The teacher may act as a giver of informative feedback and allow the learners to make their own choices with regard to the topic. The teacher needs to set the environment by which the learners are able to explore and create their own knowledge. Define the purpose of what you are making, seek its structure, think in terms of model cases, and evaluate your product, leading on to new purposes for revision and another cycle. Chapter five, Inside Models, discusses the importance of providing models to learners. Perkins states that models often sharpen the learners understanding of material and provides a structure whereby purpose and argument may be explored.