Essential Questions

AP Language

Learning is really all about the questions

we ask.

What is an essential question?

Wiggins and McTighe define essential questions as “questions that are not answerable with finality in a brief sentence… Their aim is to stimulate thought, to provoke inquiry, and to spark more questions — including thoughtful student questions — not just pat answers” (106). 

Tenants of EQs Essential questions are “important questions that recur

throughout all our lives.”  They are “broad in scope and timeless by nature.”

Essential questions  refer to “core ideas and inquiries within a discipline.”  They “point to the core of big ideas in a subject and to the frontiers of technical knowledge.  They are historically important and alive in the field.”

Essential questions help scholars “effectively inquire and make sense of important but complicated ideas, knowledge, and know-how — a bridge to findings that experts may believe are settled but learners do not yet grasp or see as valuable.”

Essential questions “will most engage a specific and diverse set of learners.”  They “hook and hold the attention” of a specific group of learners (108-109)

Sample EQs What do we mean by the word ‘culture?’

How does cultural assimilation impact culture and identity?

How do differences in culture breed conflict and misunderstanding?

What kind of responsibilities or debts to individuals owe their respective communities, local or global?

Write Your Own Now you should write FIVE to TEN

essential questions you hope to answer about your synthesis topic area.

These will help to focus your reading and your discussions.

Essential question information from Wiggins, Grant, and Jay McTighe. Understanding

by Design. Expanded 2nd Edition. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2005.