Crafting Essential Questions
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Transcript Crafting Essential Questions
Crafting Essential Questions
Traci Blanchard
North Cobb High School
Source: Understanding by Design
by Jay McTighe & Grant Wiggins, © 2004
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What is an essential question?
How do I write effective ones?
An Essential Question is
One that lies at the heart of a subject
or a curriculum & promotes inquiry &
uncoverage of a subject.
Essential Questions
Have no simple “right” answer
Provoke & sustain inquiry
Address conceptual or philosophical
foundations
Raise other important questions
Naturally & appropriately recur
Stimulate vital, ongoing rethinking
Examples
What is a true friend?
To what extent does art reflect
culture or shape it?
Is everything quantifiable?
To what extent is DNA destiny?
In what ways is algebra real and in
what ways is it unreal?
To what extent is US history a history
of progress?
Examples
Must heroes be flawless?
Who is entitled to own what?
Is the subjunctive necessary?
What makes writing worth reading?
Does practice makes perfect?
What is healthy eating? Healthy
living?
What makes a question
“essential”?
Recurs throughout all our lives
Refers to core ideas & inquiries within
a discipline
Helps students effectively inquire and
make sense of important but complex
ideas, knowledge, know-how
Engages a specific & diverse set of
learners
Intent, not language, is the
key:
Why we pose the question
How students are to tackle it
What learning activities &
assessments we expect
Types of Essential Questions
Overarching: Frame courses and
programs of study around truly big
ideas
Topical: Are unit specific but still
promote inquiry
GOOD TEACHING USES BOTH!
Overarching Essential
Questions
More general, broader
Point beyond specific topics or skills
Promote transfer of understanding
One will be used as your pre & post
SIP writing prompt
Examples of Overarching EQ
Can a fictional story be “true”?
How do a region’s geography, climate,
and natural resources affect the way
people live and work?
How does technological change
influence people’s lives? Society?
How does what we measure influence
how we measure?
Examples of Overarching EQ
How do we classify the things around
us?
Do artists have a responsibility to
their audience? To society?
How does language shape culture?
Is pain necessary for progress in
athletics?
Topical Essential Questions
Unit specific - used to guide individual
units
Promote inquiry
Resist simple answers
Require explanation & justification
One per month will be your SIP
writing prompt
Examples of Topical EQ
How might Congress have better
protected minority rights in the 1950s
& 1960s?
Should we require DNA samples from
every convicted criminal?
Is Holden Caulfield a “phony”?
Examples of Topical EQ
What is the value of place value?
What is electricity?
How do we hit with greatest power
without losing control?
Leading Questions
Meant to culminate in a fact or
completely settled conclusion
No sustained inquiry or argument
intended or necessary
Underscores an important point we
want students to note
We need these, too, BUT...
THEY CANNOT BE THE FOUNDATION OF
OUR CURRICULAR DESIGN.
Where to start?
Determine the “big ideas”
Georgia Performance Standards
Course texts
What are Big Ideas?
Core concepts, principles, theories, &
processes that should serve as the
focal point of curricula, instruction &
assessment.
Big Ideas
Are important and enduring
Are not obvious
May be prone to misunderstanding
Prioritize content
Are transferable
Are the building material of
understandings
Manifest in various ways within
disciplines
Act as “conceptual velcro”
Finding Big Ideas
Clarify Content Priorities
Worth being familiar with
Important to know and do
Big ideas & Enduring Understandings
Finding Big Ideas
Unpack the GPS
Circle key nouns, adjectives, & verbs
Draft implied or stated big ideas based on
those key words.
Critically analyze the course text
Work “backward” to determine what big
ideas and/or EQ the text addresses
Big Ideas can be
Concepts
Themes
Issues/Debates
Problems/Challenges
Processes
Theories
Paradoxes
Assumptions/Perspectives
From Big Idea to EQ
Use p. 83, Identifying EQ &
Understandings
Start with Big Idea
Answer ?s related to Big Idea
Generate EQ & desired understandings
Making the Connection
Big Idea
Topic or
Content
Standard
Understanding
Essential Question
Your task
Collaboratively draft ONE overarching
EQ for your course
(Sept., Dec.)
Collaboratively draft TWO topical
(unit) EQs for your course
(Oct., Nov.)
Example
GPS: The learner will be able to read, respond to, and
critique historically and culturally significant works of
literature in order to understand their importance and
relationship to past and present cultures.
Overarching EQ:
Does literature primarily reflect culture or
shape it?
Topical EQ:
What does Romeo & Juliet teach us about
Shakespeare’s view of destiny? How does it
compare to yours?
Where to get more
information
Other training sessions--may be
department, planning period inservice, and/or Early Release or
Cluster Days
Understanding by Design
by Jay McTighe & Grant Wiggins