What Are Essential Questions?

The Key to Understanding Essential Questions

What Are The Criteria For Good EssentialQuestions?

How Do We Write Essential Questions?

Today we will:Recognize the importance of including good essential questions in our lessons

We Will: Explore the purposes of essential questionsIdentify the criteria for good essential questionsIdentify strategies that help students to recognize the characteristics of “fat” and “skinny” questionsWrite essential questions for an upcoming unit

Essential Questions

Content Objective:

Language Objectives:

Essential Question

Link to Students’ Background

Why is it important to include essential questions

in your lesson plans?

Think-Pair-Write-Share

Exploring the Purposes of Essential Questions:

Essential questions are concepts in the form of questions. Designed to provoke and sustain inquiry Spark curiosity and a sense of wonder Essential questions are organizers and set the focus (big idea) for the lesson or unit. Essential questions are initiators of creative and critical thinking.

What are essential questions?

Exploring the Purposes of Essential Questions:

• Students are required to “go beyond” the information given to probe for deeper meaning fostering the development of critical thinking skills.• Reside at the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy (require synthesis, analysis, and evaluation)• They are open-ended, broad based - no simple “right” answer…resist a simple or single answer • Require students to draw on personal experiences • Engage students in real life applied problem solving

Essential Questions

Essential questions are questions that resonate

within our hearts and our souls. They are central to our lives. Most important thought during our lives

will center on such essential questions.

Essential questions probe the deepest issues confronting us . . . complex and baffling matters which elude simple

answers: Life - Death - Marriage - Identity - Purpose - Betrayal - Honor - Integrity - Courage - Temptation - Faith

- Leadership - Addiction - Invention - Inspiration.

Essential Questions

Essential Questions

Many believe that schools should devote more time to essential questions and less time to trivial pursuit.

As outlined in the article, "Skirting the Education Dot Bomb,"

“Schools will see the best returns on investment when they engage students as infotectives. If schools expect students to employ the kind of thinking that Sherlock Holmes or Nancy Drew would employ to solve a mystery, they stand a good chance of improving performance on state tests. Students develop the ability to interpret, analyze and infer. They spend their time transforming information into meaning . . .

Find meaning Create meaning Extend meaning Read between the lines Work with clues Build theories

Essential questions provide students withThe opportunity to….

Essential Questions

• In schools, essential questions may offer theorganizing focus for a single discussion, a month’sunit, or a whole year’s exploration.

• Outside of school, essential questions might challenge us for years!

• Essential questions cannot be nailed down insimple time frames.

Curiosity and Wonder

We need two things to build a great lesson . . .

1. An intriguing question that matches the standards 2. A collection of information that will spark understanding. Provoking a sense of wonder is paramount.

Curiosity rarely kills a cat, but boredom is definitely lethal!J. McKenzie

Essential Questions

Even very young children can tackle challenging questions if we frame them carefully in words that make sense to them.

Essential Questions

Examples of Essential Questions

Questions about traits are especially powerful for this age group as young ones try to understandthe world around them.

• What makes a good friend?• How can I be a better friend?• What makes a good day?• How can we be safe?• What kind of TV programs are healthy for us?• How would you choose a good fast food restaurant?

Primary GradesFor Example:

Examples of Essential Questions

Another major strategy to introduce young studentsto essential questions is to focus on questionsthat require analysis. Such questions playto the natural curiosity and wonder of childrenseeking to figure things out and understand howthings work.

Examples of Essential Questions

Examples:

• Why do you suppose some people break their promises?

• Why do you suppose the rain falls down?

• Why do you suppose some birds fly south in the winter?• Why do you suppose the boy in the story cheated?

• Why do you suppose the girl in the story lied?

Examples of Essential Questions

Traits are at the heart of evaluation on Bloom’s Taxonomy – the skill of making wise choices based on criteria and evidence. Traits are the basis for the values and criteria that drive choices.

Turn and Talk

How do you use essential questionsto help students learn to make wisechoices at school and in their lives?

Examples of Essential Questions

Primary students are also ready for flights of fancy,Questions that invite them to speculate, predict,Invent or imagine.

• If you could fly like a bird, where would you go? Why?

For Example:• If it snows heavily this winter, how will that make life different?• If you could change the town we live in , how would you

make it better.

• If you were asked to design a new playground for the school, how would you do it?

• If you were the boy in this story, how would you handle the problem he faces.

Answering the EssentialQuestion

Answers to essential questions cannot be “found”. Students must construct their own answers andmake their own meaning from the information theyhave gathered. Essential “answers” are not self-evidently true.Even if there are “truths” and essential theories ina discipline, the student comes to know that there are other plausible answers to be considered and sorted through along with the “sanctioned” views.

Criteria for EssentialQuestions

• Each student should be able to understand the essential question(s).• The language of the questions should be in broad terms. (no simple or one word answer)• Students must make an answer. They should not be able to find or cut and paste an answer. • There should be a logical sequence to a set of essential questions.

Writing Essential Questions

• What is your teaching objective?• Write the objective as a question?• Do you need smaller questions? Create a reasonable number…• Frame most using “how” or “why”• Rewrite if necessary to make sure learners understand the question(s).• Remember: if it is too specific or could be answered with a yes or no, it is not an essential question!

Content Objective:Recognize the importance of including good essential questions in our lessons

Why is it important to include essential questions in your lesson plans?

I Have My Essential Question, Now What?

Now you need to ask some basic questions in order to determine whether you have a good essential question. Will you need to revise it?These questions will also assist in generatinglessons that lead students toward the answer. • What should the student have learned prior to the lesson?• What will the student need to know in order to answer the question?• What strategies will actively engage the student as they Work toward the answer?• How will you know that the students are learning the information?• How will the students demonstrate their final answer to the question?• What will you do for those who do not learn? (scaffold/differentiate instruction to answer essential questions)

Quiz-Quiz-Trade Application: Rainbow Fish

1. Stand up, hand up, pair up2. Partner A quizzes.3. Partner B answers.4. Partner A praises or coaches.5. Switch roles.6. Partners trade cards.7. Repeat steps 1-6 a number of times.

Objective: Students quiz a partner, get quizzed by a partner, and thentrade cards to repeat the process with a new partner.

Activity Steps

Activity Directions: Quiz: Read your question to your partner. Ask: Is it an “fat” or “skinny” question? Discuss why or why not?

Think-Pair-Write-Share

Link to Students’ Background

Why is it important to include essential questions

in your lesson plans?

Add additional information to your list…

Did we:Recognize the importance of including good essential questions in our lessons

Did we: Explore the purposes of essential questionsIdentify the criteria for good essential questionsIdentify strategies that help students to recognize the characteristics of “fat” and “skinny” questionsIndependently Practice: Write essential questions for an upcoming unit

Essential Questions

Content Objectives:

Language Objectives:

Write essential questions for an upcoming lesson or unit.

Assignment

The Art of Asking Essential Questions, by Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Paul www.criticalthinking.org

Resources

The Question Mark, by Jamie McKenzie http://questioning.org/mar05/essential.html

From Trivial Pursuit to Essential Questionsand Standards-Based Learning, by Jamie McKenzie http://www.fno.org/feb01/pl.htmlEssential Questions Resources, by Christine Crites

http://www.ecarter.k12.mo.us/dept/elementary/fourthgrade/ccrites/essentialquestions.html

Resources

Sallie B. Howard School for the Arts and Education:Wilson County, North CarolinaIndependent Charter SchoolPacing Guides that include examples of essentialquestions:http://www.salliebhowardschool.com/Teachers-PACING_GUIDES.html#

The Key to Understanding Essential Questions,Jackie Leotta, Staff Development SpecialistJleotta@Hannibalesd.org

Skirting the Education dot bomb, by Jamie McKenzie;http://www.fno.org/feb01/edudotbomb.html