Part 1. Definition
You will be given a summary of a story. You need to create a question that can be answered from the story. You can create a question about characters, events, facts and beliefs, etc. Your question should be specific, try not to use pronouns instead of full names. As the stories are sometimes movie plots, they will contain actor names in parentheses. You should not use those names. Only use character names. Try to ask a question about all parts of the plot, not just the beginning.
Part 2. Example
Mark Hunter (Slater), a high school student in a sleepy suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, starts an FM pirate radio station that broadcasts from the basement of his parents' house. Mark is a loner, an outsider, whose only outlet for his teenage angst and aggression is his unauthorized radio station. His pirate station's theme song is "Everybody Knows" by Leonard Cohen and there are glimpses of cassettes by such alternative musicians as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Camper Van Beethoven, Primal Scream, Soundgarden, Ice-T, Bad Brains, Concrete Blonde, Henry Rollins, and The Pixies. By day, Mark is seen as a loner, hardly talking to anyone around him; by night, he expresses his outsider views about what is wrong with American society. When he speaks his mind about what is going on at his school and in the community, more and more of his fellow students tune in to hear his show.
Nobody knows the true identity of "Hard Harry" or "Happy Harry Hard-on," as Mark refers to himself, until Nora Diniro (Mathis), a fellow student, tracks him down and confronts him the day after a student named Malcolm commits suicide after Harry attempts to reason with him. The radio show becomes increasingly popular and influential after Harry confronts the suicide head-on, exhorting his listeners to do something about their problems instead of surrendering to them through suicide at the crescendo of his yelled speech, an overachieving student named Paige Woodward (who has been a constant listener) jams her various medals and accolades into a microwave and turns it on. She then sits, watching the awards cook until the microwave explodes, injuring her. While this is happening, other students act out in cathartic release.
Eventually, the radio show causes so much trouble in the community that the FCC is called in to investigate. During the fracas, it is revealed that the school's principal (Annie Ross) has been expelling "problem students," namely, students with below-average standardized test scores, in an effort to boost the district's test scores while still keeping their names on the rolls (a criminal offense) in order to retain government funding.
Realizing he has started something huge, Mark decides it is up to him to end it. He dismantles his radio station and attaches it to his mother's old jeep, creating a mobile transmitter so his position can't be triangulated. Pursued by the police and the FCC, Nora drives the jeep around while Mark broadcasts. The harmonizer he uses to disguise his voice breaks, and with no time left to fix it, Mark decides to broadcast his final message as himself. They finally drive up to the crowd of protesting students, and Mark tells them that the world belongs to them and that they should make their own future. The police step in and arrest Mark and Nora. As they are taken away, Mark reminds the students to "talk hard." As the film ends, the voices of other students (and even one of the teachers) speak as intros for their own independent stations, which can be heard broadcasting across the country.
Answer: What does Paige do with her medals?
Explanation: This is a good question and can be answered based on the story.
Part 3. Exercise
Hawthorne sets the scene in a rural valley located in an unnamed U.S. state that resembles New Hampshire. A rock formation in a nearby notch is imagined, by many locals and visitors, to resemble the shape and features of a human face:
The Great Stone Face, then, was a work of Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position as, when viewed at a proper distance, to precisely to resemble the features of the human countenance. It seemed as if an enormous giant, or a Titan, had sculptured his own likeness on the precipice. There was the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in height. . . .
The local folklore of the valley includes a prophecy, alleged to descend from the Native Americans, that at some future date a native son would be born within sight of the notch whose features would resemble the Great Stone Face; and when this face was seen, those who would see him would recognize that he was "the greatest and noblest personage of his time." This prophecy inspires an innocent youngster of the valley, Ernest, who feels within himself the quest to help uncover this hero.
As time passes and Ernest grows to manhood, the story from the notch is bruited about the United States, and others are also inspired. Unlike Ernest, the hope of some of them is that they themselves would be the hero of the tale. One by one, they revisit the valley to seek public recognition and acknowledgment of this resemblance. The succession of would-be American heroes forms the body of Hawthorne's narrative. In succession, a merchant of immense wealth, a conquering general, a politician renowned for his skilled oratory, and finally a brilliant writer return to the glen. After enjoying the brief plaudits of their admirers, the four men each reveal themselves to have character flaws that prevent them from fulfilling the conditions of the prophecy. Each of them have slight flaws in their physiognomies, recognized at once by the sensitive Ernest, that serve as foreshadows of their inability to live up to the expectations of their eager friends.
During this string of disappointments, Ernest has become a spry but aged man. He has progressed from being a hill farmer to the position of local lay preacher. The writer, who (in contrast to the first three contestants) frankly acknowledges his failure to fulfill the prophecy, caps his visit to the notch by attending one of Ernest's impromptu sunset sermons. By popular demand, the congregation has asked Ernest to deliver his sacred remarks from a site at the base of the notch where the worshipers can see the Great Stone Face high above.
Hawthorne describes the climax of Ernest's sermon:
At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter, the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so imbued with benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms aloft and shouted, 'Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone Face!' Then all the people looked, and saw that what the deep-sighted poet said was true. The prophecy was fulfillled. But Ernest, having finished what he had to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly homeward, still hoping that some wiser and better man than himself would by and by appear, bearing a resemblance to the GREAT STONE FACE.
Answer:
Where was the sermon given that the w riter attended?