The Stuff You Can't Google: Essential Questions

By Kate Wolfe Maxlow

Jogging. Driving to work. Over dinner with loved ones. These are the times that our brains explore the questions that define who we are and who we want to become as human beings.

How do you know what is true? * Is war ever justified? * How do you know when you have enough?

If you’ve been exposed to the concept of Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, then you probably had some an immediate realizations while reading the above paragraphs: those are Essential Questions.  And they are, in the biggest, most overarching senses of the concept.

Here are some more Essential Questions (and notice how one can lead to another):

What are the essential characteristics of humans that haven’t changed throughout our existence?

Subquestion A: How can one generation relate to the next?

Subquestion B: How can educators relate to their students?

Do you see where I’m going with this?  The more I ponder the above Essential Questions, the more I keep coming back to this understanding: Asking questions and searching for answers is an essential part of the human experience.

In other words, even when students “talk” more through social media than they do through their mouths, even when they no longer have to memorize facts or read maps or anything else that the majority of educators did during our formative years: They’re still going to be wrestling with those same Essential Questions:

How do you know what is true? * Is war ever justified? * How do you know when you have enough?

And in this age, where there are so many competing sources for attention right at everyone’s fingertips, it’s more imperative than ever that we help students see the relevance of what we’re teaching.  Their brains are purposefully setting up filters so that if something is immensely interesting or important, they focus their attention somewhere else.  Essential Questions and Understandings are both interesting and important.

So, how do you know if a question is just a question, or if it’s an Essential Question?  According to Wiggins and McTighe, there are seven characteristics of an Essential Question:

1. Is open-ended (no single, final, or correct answer)
2. Is thought-provoking and intellectually engaging, often sparking discussion or debate
3. Calls for higher-order thinking
4. Points toward important, transferable ideas
5. Raises additional questions and sparks further inquiry
6. Requires support and justification
7. Recurs over time; can and should be revisited again and again
8. Must be student-friendly! (ADDED BY HAMPTON CITY SCHOOLS)
   

Note that “Essential Question” doesn’t mean, “It’s essential that you know the answer in order to pass a test.”  Some teachers define “essential questions” that way, and I always urge them to ask themselves, “But WHY does something think it’s important that your students know that information in the first place?” Because that’s probably where the actual Essential Question lies.

For instance, “What states seceded during the Civil War?” is NOT an essential question.  It IS a question that you should ask during a lesson, and it can help you explore the Essential Question, but the actual Essential Question might be one that we looked at above: “Is war ever justified?” We can then look through the lens of both the Confederate and the Union states to determine why each side thought the war was justifiable, based on geographical factors, religion, economies, etc..

As a teacher, is it more important that you’re able to find good essential questions or write them yourself?  My answer is: yes.  You need to be able to do both.  There are some amazing Essential Questions that already exist in PreK-12 lesson planning, and why reinvent the wheel? On the other hand, some that you find through a quick Google search may need tweaking to truly be an Essential Question, and sometimes you don’t find anything at all for what you teach.

To that end, here are some big, broad Essential Questions that can be used time and again throughout the PreK-12 curriculum.  Note that some might need to be put into simpler language for our younger students.  They’re loosely organized around the 5 Cs: Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Citizenship, which are often the main goals of PreK-12 education.

See if you can relate one or more of these to YOUR content area.

Collaboration:

• Is conflict inevitable? When is conflict desirable?  When is it avoidable?
• What is worth fighting for?
• What structures are needed to work together effectively?
• What are our common goals?
• When should majority rule?
• When do we share? When do we keep things to ourselves?
• What does a community need to survive?
• What does the community owe its individual members?  What do individual members owe the community?
• How are people connected?
• How are living things connected?
• When do we need to work together?  When do we need to work alone?

Communication:

• How do I best communicate my point to others?
• How does the way that I communicate affect how others understand me?
• How do I organize my thoughts?
• How does someone’s background influence how they hear a message?
• Who should have access to information?
• Why do we ask questions?
• How does the way that something is presented impact the message it sends?

Critical Thinking:

• How do I know what is true?
• Whom do we believe and why?
• How do I know my answer is correct?
• What is progress?
• How do we know when we have enough?
• How does what we measure influence how we measure?
• What predictions can we make from past events?
• How do I know where to begin when solving a problem?
• How do I know my solution works?
• How can patterns be used to make predictions?
• Are there any absolutes?
• How do we define success?
• What don’t you know, that you don’t know?
• How can we use the facts that we do know to figure out what we don’t know?
• What should stay the same? What needs to change?
• What does it take to change a person's mind?

Creativity:

• What is art?  What isn’t art?
• Who am I?
• What story do I want to tell?
• How do I want to be remembered?
• What do I want people to know about me?  What do I want to keep private?
• Is art for the artist or the audience?
• How faithful does a piece of art need to be to real life?
• How do we portray emotions?
• Should creative works be critiqued?
• When is it okay to copy?
• Who am I?
• How do we represent the world around us?
• Where does perception end and reality begin?
• What do our fantasies tell us about ourselves?
• What are the limits of the possible?

Citizenship

• What is power?
• What rules and laws do we need?
• What does a government owe its people? What do people owe their government?
• What is meant by equality?
• At what point do we sacrifice privacy for protection?
• How does where we live affect how we live?
• When are an individual’s rights more important than the collective good?  When is the collective good more important than an individual’s rights?
• Are we really free?
• Does history really repeat itself?
• How do changes in laws change people’s attitudes?  How do changes in people’s attitude change laws?
• How does our environment shape us?  How do we shape our environment?
• What is justice?  What is mercy?
• Are there "good guys" and "bad guys" in history?
• Can one person make a difference?

Other:

• What problems does technology solve?  What problems does technology create?
• What is progress?
• What ideas and discoveries make exploration possible?  What ideas and discoveries does exploration make possible?
• Why do we explore?
• What does it mean to be alive?
• What do we need to survive?
• What is time?
• What makes a home?
• What is a hero?
• How do our hearts and minds influence the actions that we take?

What other ones can you add to the list?

Kate Wolfe Maxlow is the Professional Learning Coordinator for Hampton City Schools, Virginia. You can contact her at kmaxlow@hampton.k12.va.us.