THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

Jackie Leotta, Staff Development Specialist

Jleotta@Hannibalcsd.org

What Are Essential Questions?

What Are The Criteria For Good Essential Questions?

How Do We Write Essential Questions?

WHAT ARE ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS?

They offer the organizing focus for the unit, the big ideas. They are open-ended, broad-based and resist a simple or single right answer.

They require students to draw upon personal experience only.

They can be revisited throughout the unit to engage students in evolving dialogue and debate and can lead to other essential questions posed by students .

False Content knowledge, too

True

True

They probe for deeper meaning, fostering the development of critical thinking skills and higher order capabilities such as problem-solving and understanding complex systems.

They are always matters of analysis, synthesis, and evaluative judgment. The student is always asked to "go beyond" the information given where they probe for a deeper meaning, fostering the development of critical thinking skills.

They are not interdisciplinary in nature.

True

TrueFalse

They are interdisciplinary in nature.

WHAT ARE THE CRITERIA FOR GOOD ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS?

Good essential questions center around minor issues, problems, concerns, interests, or themes relevant to students' lives but not to their communities.

Good essential questions engage students in the kinds of real life applied problem-solving suggested by the Standards.

A good essential question is designed to generate interesting inquiries and is the principle component of designing inquiry-based learning.

False

True

True

Good essential questions reside in all of Bloom's Taxonomy .

A good essential question is the “On My Own” question on Taffy Raphael’s QAR rubric (CRISS)

They reside in the top levels of Bloom’s where students must EVALUATE (make a thoughtful choice between options, with the choice based upon clearly stated criteria), to SYNTHESIZE (invent a new or different version) or to ANALYZE (develop a thorough and complex understanding through skillful questioning).

True

“Right There,” “Think and Search” and “Author & You” Questions are guiding and probing questions that help to answer the EQ.

False.

HOW DO WE WRITE ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS?

When writing essential questions, there are some things to consider:

•the theme or concepttheme or concept in the curriculum that must be addressed and brainstorm questionsbrainstorm questions that you or the students believe would cause them to think about the concept withoutwithoutdictating the direction or outcomedictating the direction or outcome of their thinking (e.g. "Why is fighting bad?" contains its own answer, namely that fighting is bad).

•How to utilize the six typical queriessix typical queries that newspaper articles address: Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How?

Can the question be addressed in many many subjectssubjects?

Is the question too broad or too narrowtoo narrow?

Does it generate a personalized interestpersonalized interestthat will "hook" the students?

Does it lend itself to real worldreal worldapplications?

Consider the “answeringanswering” of the essential question.

ANSWERING THE ESSENTIAL QUESTION

Answers to essential questions cannot be “found”. Students must construct their own answers and make their own meaning from the information they have gathered:

This kind of “information gatheringinformation gathering”, should proceed over the course of several weeks, with much of the “information gathering” taking place outsideoutside of formally scheduled class hours.

Essential "answers" are not self-evidently true. Even if there are "truths" and essential theories in a discipline, the studentcomes to know that there are other plausible thesesother plausible theses and hypotheses to be considered and sorted through along with the "sanctioned" views"sanctioned" views.

How Do Guiding Questions Assist The Learner?

Once an essential question has been identified, the next step might be to formulate a list of related questions that will assist the learner in answering the essential question.

Within an essential question are subcategories that will generate questions that guide the learner's inquiry:

EQ: "What makes a video game good?“

SUBCATEGORIES: graphics, ease of use, violence, and audience appropriateness.

SUBSEQUENT QUESTIONS: "How do graphics affect the quality of the game?" or "How does ease of use contribute to its overall rating?"

Essential Questions to Guiding Questions♦ Essential Question♦ Must a story have a moral,

heroes, and villains?♦ How does an organism's

structure enable it to live in its environment?

♦ Who is a friend?

♦ What is light?

♦ Unit Question♦ Is Huck Finn a hero?

♦ How do the structures of amphibians and reptiles support their survival?

♦ Has it been true in recent U.S. history and foreign affairs that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend?“

♦ How do cats see in the dark?

♦ Is light a particle or a wave?

EQ to Guiding Questions Continued

♦ Is the gap between the rich and poor any better now that it was 100 years ago?

♦ Do new technologies always lead to progress?

♦ How do the creatures of the tide pool survive? What are the main features that all tide pool creatures have in common?

♦ What are sarcasm, irony, and satire? How do these genres allow us to communicate without saying what we mean?

♦ Is U.S. history a history or progress?

♦ Is biology ruled by survival of the fittest?

♦ Do we always mean what we say and say what we mean?

EQ or GQ?

Is geometry more like map-making and using a map, or inventing and playing games like chess?

Were theorems invented or discovered?

Do mathematical models conceal as much as they reveal? (From Understanding by Design: Curriculum and Assessment, pp. 34-35)

Do statistics always lie?

Must a story have a moral? A beginning, middle, and end? Heroes and villains?

What makes a family a community?

Did Gorbachev undermine or fulfill the promises of the Revolution?

How is the Constitution the backbone structure of America?

Is gravity a fact or a theory?

Is evolution a scientific law or a theory?

In what ways are animals human, and in what way are humans animals?

Examples of Civil War EQ’sDo we have to fight wars (Why/Why not)?

How could political issues or ideas ever become more important than family loyalties?

Some say our country remains wounded by the slavery experience and the Civil War. In what ways might this claim be true and in what ways untrue? What evidence can you supply to substantiate your case?

Military officers often complain that the effective conduct of modern war is impeded by political interference and popular pressures on the home front. To what extent is this relevant to the Civil War?

How can countries avoid the kind of bloodshed and devastation we experienced during our Civil War?

Who showed greater bravery and courage; the front line soldiers and nurses who tended to the wounded and dying or the leaders of the war effort?

Should there be a law against war profiteering?

How much diversity can any nation tolerate?

PREJUDICE AND TOLERANCE

What are the different kinds of human prejudice?

How can tolerance be taught?

What has been the impact of individual and group prejudice?

How can I become more tolerant?

8th Grade 3 Week Thematic Unit

Jacobs, 1997

EVERYDAY PHYSICS: TRANSPORTATION AND

PHYSICSHow can cars, boats and airplanes become safer for passengers?

How can principles of force and motion help driver effectiveness and safety?

Are safety and speed compatible?

Jacobs, 1997

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

1. How fit is healthy for someone your age?

2. What knowledge and attitudes must be acquired to effectively manage your own health-related fitness?

3. What knowledge, skills and behaviors are essential to successful participation in fitness-oriented lifelong activities?

QUESTIONS FOR ARTWhat is art?

Who is an artist?

How does art expand and enhance our thinking?

How does art record and communicate the human experience?

How does art represent personal expression (exploration, insight)?

How does art reflect human culture?

How does art influence what we can learn about ourselves and about our society?

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS FOR LOTE

How do I exchange basic personal information in French, Spanish, German, or any other LOTE?

How do I ask questions and understand others’ responses in exchanging information about ourselves, our friends, our families, and our everyday lives?

What are some basic understandings about France, Spain, Germany, or any other LOTE country of study and its cultural heritage?

SO… WHY ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS?

If knowledge is made up of "answers," then what are the questions? Too often students leave school never realizing

that knowledge is produced and refined in response to questions and inquiry. Too often the design of a course precludes students from asking and pursuing wonderful

questions as they arise in the unfolding work, which leads to less engagement. Shouldn't we try to make coursework more authentic by better revealing how all knowledge is pursued and shaped by questioning? And shouldn't we

help the student simulate or recreate some of the processes by which the knowledge was created? Our aim as teachers, then, is not merely coverage, but also "un-coverage". (This also makes important room for student

questions that now seem important, not "stupid".)