• “What are some examples of essential questions that are famous and well known?”
• “Why are essential questions vital to success in so many areas of life?”
• “How does asking essential questions shape and affect our views, opinions, and ideas about things?”
One simple exercise you can use is to collect examples of both essential and non-essential questions and place them where the whole class can see them. Next, have learners indicate on a worksheet or by using voting cards which questions they believe are essential and which ones are not, and have them discuss their perceptions in groups.
You can take this activity even further by discussing with your students how they could transform nonessential questions into essential questions. Ask them what it takes to turn a simple question with an elementary answer into one that fosters meaningful discussion, exploration, and reflection. Ask them how they would transform the question in both word and intent.
Reflection
After you complete this activity with your students, take some time to reflect on and answer the following questions.
• What knowledge were your learners able to demonstrate about essential questions?
• How much better do they now understand an essential question’s structure and importance?
• In what ways and in what other kinds of activities could your students apply this new knowledge?
Go Beyond the Curriculum
In Understanding by Design, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (2005) remind us that essential questions are “important questions that recur throughout all our lives” and that they are “broad in scope and timeless by nature” (p. 108). Such questions lead us to explore the deeper issues of life and what it means to have uniquely human experiences and interactions with the world around us and those we share it with. These issues may not necessarily align with your core curriculum, but there is value in having your students receive practice with how to explore them. This is the time for you to step outside the curriculum and encourage them to let their imaginations soar without fear of judgment. Ask your learners what’s on their minds, what their primary concerns are, and what they truly wonder about.
Activity
Have your learners think about, write, and revise a list of questions that concern the kinds of timeless topics that interest them and make them want to investigate. This is a way for you to connect them to their interests, their deepest musings about everything under the sun, and perhaps even to things beyond the sun. They need not restrict the questions they write to curriculum, although the next step would be finding ways to use herding questions to connect them with it in ways that are creative, challenging, and relevant.
The essential questions you ask students for this activity can be from a variety of different viewpoints. They can be personal.
• “How do you discover your true calling?”
• “What can you do to improve your relationship with your family?”
• “Which country have you always wanted to visit and why?”
They can be philosophical.
• “What does it mean to truly be alive?”
• “Why do we dream and what do our dreams tell us?”
• “What should be our greatest goal as a society and why?”
They can be ethical.
• “Is condemning a murderer to death justifiable?”
• “Is it acceptable to risk harm to others to benefit someone who is clearly in need?”
• “Should people be allowed to clone themselves?”
They can be scientific.
• “What type of diet allows for optimum athletic performance?”
• “When and how do scientific theories change?”
• “How can we be sure that the universe beyond our world is truly infinite?”
They can be global.
• “How could we ensure and sustain enough food, water, and clothing for every living person on Earth?”
• “How has technology transformed how we see ourselves and others? Is this good or bad?”
• “How can small actions eventually change the world?”
For a deeper challenge, break students into groups and have them take turns posing their essential questions to the group for discussion. Pay careful attention to the questions they are sharing, and if possible, encourage them to find ways to link them to lessons in the curriculum. From there, choose the best questions as the focus for upcoming classroom units of study.
Reflection
After you complete this activity with your students, take some time to reflect on and answer the following questions.
• What are the types of issues that students revealed they are most interested in exploring?
• Why are these matters important to them?
• How did student groups discuss and answer the questions?
• Is there anything students are still wondering about?
• What do they know about exploring important issues in this manner that they didn’t know before?
Use Socratic Seminars
The Greek philosopher Socrates was renowned for his belief in the power of asking good questions. The aptly named Socratic seminar seeks to provide a powerful platform for students to both ask and answer open-ended questions about a wide range of topics and content in a way that is highly collaborative and social (“Socratic Seminar,” n.d.). Socratic seminars call for students to apply critical and independent thinking by way of forming both essential and herding questions about the discussion topic and responding to the questions of others. Socratic seminars also teach learners how to respond to questions with thoughtfulness and civility.
Activity
Hold your own classwide Socratic seminar on a topic or material you choose. Begin by exploring the structure of the Socratic seminar with your learners. Students can prepare well beforehand by reading the appropriate text and formulating questions as though they were entering a formal debate. Work with students to also come up with a clear list of guidelines and expectations for the seminar.
On the day the seminar begins, you are the one best prepared to lead the discussion so that students can get their feet wet with the whole process. However, you ultimately want them to take over the proceedings and lead the discussions themselves, almost as if you weren’t even in the room. Since your learners’ thought processes and inquiries are the focal point of the Socratic seminar, it makes sense to involve students in these structural decisions.
The guidelines you’ll agree to follow are important, such as when to turn discussion—a sharing of ideas—into debate. In this context, that debate should consist of peers attempting to persuade each other and challenge each other’s opinions. Throughout the process, your role will be one of mediator and guide for the discussion, steering it back to the right trajectory if it should happen to go off the rails.
As you should always do when engaging students in a format of this nature, debrief afterward. You and your students work together to assess the effectiveness of the seminar on the day’s or the week’s learning goals. As part of this debrief, ask students to set goals for future seminars and discuss topics of interest that will provide fodder for lively discussions and the development of more essential questions.
Reflection
After you complete this activity with your students,