4.1: The Essential Question Engagement Check!
Learning Objective
- Participants will learn McTighe & Wiggins' Seven Qualifying Components that Make a Question Essential.
- Participants will come to an understanding of how to ensure their Essential Question enhances student engagement within the curriculum
Engage
Time to reflect on the Essential Question drafting process! Think of the Essential Question you currently have written down in your workbook as a rough draft of a final essay. This lesson will take you through the editing steps you need in order to perfect your question!
Learn
Your essential question should appeal to students. It should be alluring and really pull them into the curriculum; they should feel intrigued by the vastness of potential answers and want to discuss it with their friends or family.
Essential questions allow for learning to feel like it is an experience that students are embarking upon, and we as their teachers are there to act as their guides/facilitators along the way. The EQ does not have to be and should not be so sophisticated in language that students do not understand what it is asking them. Rather, our job is to design a question that genuinely gets students thinking about themselves and the world around them and, eventually, the core text, once it has been invited into the conversation. Essentially, the end goal is to get students to answer the Essential Question in a more informed way by the end of the unit.
As has been referenced throughout this entire mini-course, McTighe & Grant are the 2 “gurus” of Essential Question Design. According to these experts, there are seven qualities an essential question must have to make it not only highly engaging but truly essential. Below please find an excerpt from their textbook Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Engagement:
"Here are seven defining characteristics. A good essential question...
- Is open-ended; that is, it typically will not have a single, final, and correct answer.
- Is thought-provoking and intellectually engaging, often sparking discussion and debate.
- Calls for higher-order thinking, such as analysis, inference, evaluation, prediction. It cannot be effectively answered by recall alone.
- Points toward important, transferable ideas within (and sometimes across) disciplines.
- Raises additional questions and sparks further inquiry.
- Requires support and justification, not just an answer.
- Recurs over time; that is, the question can and should be revisited again and again" (McTighe & Wiggins, p. 3, 2013).
Here is an example of how to implement Essential Questions into a secondary ELA classroom. Notice how each question in the image meets all/most of McTighe & Wiggins' seven defining characteristics!
Recommended Outside Readings:
- Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understandings Jay McTighe & Grant Wiggins
Practice
Use this Google form to check your understanding.
Apply
First, complete the Lesson 4.1 slide in your Essential Question Virtual Workbook!
Then, post your reflection on the Lesson 4 Reflection Jamboard slide by clicking here.
Continue to 4.2: Sharing the Final Draft of Your EQ!
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