2.2: The Overlap of the Pillars
Learning Objective
- Participants will identify the unit they would like to revamp utilizing the essential question approach.
- Participants will identify the three “pillars” in their unit (core text, themes, and skills).
Engage
In Lesson 2.1 you looked at the three pillars as a general blueprint for building effective essential questions, and now it's time to begin identifying the pillars of your own unit and mapping out your own Essential Question!
Learn
We have now identified the three pillars of Essential Questions as:
- Texts,
- Themes, and
- Skills
The next step is looking at how these three pillars come together to lay the framework of an Essential Question.
One way to do this is by putting all of these things into a 3-way Venn diagram, as shown in the image below:
I have also included a completed version of the Venn diagram that I used to create my Hunger Games unit. I am going to walk you through my thought process in the space below.
You’ll see that I have written my texts in the orange-colored circle. This is a whole-class, novel unit, which is important for me to keep in mind.
Additionally, you’ll see that I have typed the “texts” pillar In the green circle. When thinking about themes, I am thinking about dystopia as a genre, as well as the impact that restrictions and limited freedom of speech have on an individual. I’m also thinking about all-controlling governments, technology being used as surveillance in Panem, and revolution/the decisions made by characters to revolt.
My last circle is the yellow circle, which is focusing on skills. My unit is going to be focusing on reading and writing skills. Specifically, I want my unit to look at the way that Katniss juxtaposes everything the government wants her to be, so juxtaposition is something that I am going to be really interested in looking at with my students. Another thing that is going to be important to me in this unit is looking at characters as symbols, specficially Katniss falling into this symbol of a mockingbird/someone to revolt for.
Apply
Create your own Venn diagram for the unit you would like to revamp utilizing an EQ-based approach to teaching on the Lesson 2.2 Slide in your interactive workbook.
Continue to Unit 3: Designing an Essential Question
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