How to Write Essential Questions that Engage Students
For a long time, English teachers have been teaching in three very specific ways: novel-based, skill-based, and theme-based units. This was how I started my career, too. There were a lot of struggles that I faced in my early years, and it wasn’t until around my sixth year of teaching that I realized that it wasn’t my classroom management that was a problem or my own competence that was a problem: it was that my units were too narrow and I was working way too hard lesson-by-lesson to dance and sing in an effort to get my students to be engaged. 100% of the work was on me and none of it was on the kids. By controlling every unit by the book, theme, or skill of my choosing, I was forcing an agenda that could only be controlled by me, leaving students distant unless I put on a show every day and (as you know) that is how you get on the fast track to Burnout City.
When I first learned about Essential Questions, I was skeptical. I was pretty set on not changing my ways (even as a young teacher!), but because I so highly respected my department chair at the time, I decided to hear her out and read the research. Then, slowly, we started experimenting with using EQs. At first, we had mixed success. And then, we started Fahrenheit 451, and we got it. And I even have developed a MASTERCLASS to help you get started writing your own EQs!
BEFORE
I wish I had some amazing transformation photo to show you, because that’s what this experience felt like. It was like losing 350lbs or having my life changed on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. But curriculum transformation doesn’t really photograph as well, so you’ll have to read what I have to say and picture it in your head.
Before, our unit was called Fahrenheit 451. That was it. We focused on close reading skills (figurative language), characterization, and plot structure kinds of things. Nothing that stellar and, to be honest, we were really struggling getting kids to read it in the first place. The assessment was something literary analysis related and I can’t remember any shining stars in that bunch, either.
AFTER
The first Essential Question we ever wrote, we really had no idea what we were doing. We were just trying to write a question to get our boss off our backs and to “cover” the things that we were already covering in the unit. We came up with this: to what extent is America a dystopia? And it. Was. Brilliant.
This little shift changed everything and every day, we were scrambling to meet together to talk about the new opportunities for critical thinking that were opening up every day. Think about the power of this question:
It asks students to qualify an amount - how much of America is dystopian?
It asks students to define what dystopia is so that they can qualify it
It is prime for argument at a variety of levels (most E2 students could answer it in some way)
It pairs a fictional genre with a real place and invites comparison
So now that we had this question to guide our unit, we had an entirely new perspective on teaching Fahrenheit. Suddenly, “characterization” wasn’t that important: uncovering Montag’s evolution and exploring in what ways we are being lied to or choosing not to seek out the truth became the central focus. We stopped writing down character traits and started looking at Montag and his world and comparing it to America. We were still doing “characterization”, but we were doing it better and more critically. And now that our unit was focused on a question, Fahrenheit was no longer the only text in play. We added “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Leguin. We added a YouTube playlist of dystopian film trailers for students to watch and attempt to uncover patterns and define dystopia on their own. We watched “Inside North Korea” from National Geographic and “Generation Like” from PBS Frontline (see freebie download below!). The more we talked about the questions, the more texts we added to the pile for consultation. We even added the picture book “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” to the list for a few years and had so much fun deconstructing the dystopian / utopian premise of the story. Here’s a look at that lesson in action from my Brave New Teaching co-host Marie Morris:
THE RESULTS & THE WHY
I’m not saying that I performed some kind of miracle here and that some kind of crazy magic took over my classroom, but I will say that the engagement level shifted dramatically. Essential Questions became both the predictable structure I needed (they know what and why they’re learning the day’s content -- to find the answer!) and the authentic element of building curiosity and discovery (again, the desire to find the answer to the question!). This has given me permission to stray away from the core text and intentionally build units that do MORE than teach comprehension of a single novel. Even though I was integrating other texts before, I always felt guilty that they were taking time away from the novel or I couldn’t exactly explain to the kids why it was relevant. The Essential Question gives me the umbrella I need.
Let’s continue our discussion over in my Facebook group, The Adventurous Teaching Academy.
And, I have an awesome freebie for you! Here’s a film guide for the PBS Frontline documentary Generation Like that I frequently use within EQ units that feature dystopian types of texts. Enjoy!
