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Month: September 2018

Sep142018

Why is the Essential Question Essential?

Why is the Essential Question Essential?

What is an essential question? I remember when I was in my capstone course at Temple University when my professor posed this question to my cohort and me. He said the essential question is essential for framing a unit. You can “hook” students into whatever stories you read in the unit by connecting all of these stories to a question that they will continue to investigate.

I didn’t quite understand how one question could possibly address all of the texts read in one unit at the time. I initially considered this one question to be quite limiting. I thought, why should we create the same question for reflection across texts? Why not investigate different questions and ideas?…

While reflecting on the challenges I had with constructing an essential question, the jazz tune “I Can’t Get Started (With You)” by Ira Gershwin, sung by Ella Fitzgerald, came to mind; I simply could not understand how one question could apply to all readings. I had difficulties getting started myself.

Today, I understand more than ever before why the essential question is dynamic. The essential question allows for:

  1. Purposeful reading: Students read with intention and use the question as a guide for deeper understanding
  2. A starting point for further investigation: While students are learning how to formulate their own questions, the essential question is a starting point
  3. Higher order thinking: The essential question should be an open-ended question. This creates a space for students to begin investigating other aspects of a given text
  4. Transfer of Learning: The essential question transfers from one reading to the next. Considering this, students have the opportunity to critically think about how this question applies in different contexts
  5. Interdisciplinary connections: Students understand how to apply the question across disciplines for a more dynamic learning experience

Michael Smith (my professor in the capstone course) and Jeffrey Wilhelm both agree in Going with the Flow (2006) that for an essential question to work, it must be debatable and most of all, it must be meaningful. To provide you with an idea of what makes an essential question, the following are five questions created according to the aforementioned criteria:

  1. How can literature serve as a vehicle for social change?
  2. How does conflict lead to change?
  3. What is truth and who defines it?
  4. What is reality and how is it constructed?
  5. What does it mean to be invisible?

Overall, these questions are created while backward planning and reflecting on what is essential for students to know and understand in a unit. Most importantly, these questions help when guiding students into more critical areas of inquiry. What essential questions do you and have you used in your classroom? In what ways have these questions changed the way you approach a unit? I’m looking forward to your comments….

Sep62018

The Importance of being in the “Trenches” with your Students

The Importance of being in the “Trenches” with your Students

Before teaching, I never imagined that I would have the opportunity to perform with my students. I never conceived of this idea because when I attended high school and college, I did not interact with my teachers outside of the academic setting. I would not bring myself to ask a teacher if they would sing a song with me or play a backing instrument while I read poetry. Sadly to say, I never witnessed my teachers reading and writing for personal enjoyment. I always assumed that’s what teachers did, however, I did not see my teachers model this.

“This” changed when I became a teacher. Over the years, I have engaged with my students on a number of creative projects. I have sung, read poetry, danced and acted with my students. This student/teacher interaction was made possible by the environment I currently reside in. I live in a setting where students are comfortable with calling me by my first name and they are equally comfortable (I hope) with joining me in the creative process.

I am aware that there will be times when writing or performing with my students means that they will see me when I am most vulnerable. This is never easy, considering I was raised in a “the teacher is always right” culture. Well, I’m here to say that this teacher is not always right–my creativity does not always flow within a classroom session–I do not always hit the right notes when rehearsing a song (or performing for that matter); when I made this admission, I became more at ease with constructing a sonnet, or a short story alongside my charges. I also felt more at ease experimenting with rhythms and improvisations with my charges because the pressure to be “right” or “perfect” was no longer a hindrance.

I’ll use the “jazz…” in “Jazz and Blackboards” to share an example of my vulnerability in the presence of my students. When I initially sang with the big band, I knew that some of my English students would be backing me with their instruments. I was also aware of the limited time I had to rehearse songs, considering the intensity of the school year. Admittedly, I was nervous about not hitting every note and phrase correctly because that “incorrectness” would be a direct reflection on me (my character, my teaching, my learning process). This, however, was not completely the case. Through intense reflection and maturity, I realized that my students needed to witness how I struggled to get to the point of mastery. They needed to witness how I coped with not always hitting the right notes.

A former student of mine thought I had a natural talent because he never observed my rehearsal process. After joining the band, he apologized for saying that I was a natural–I could have taken this as a real insult, or I could have taken pride in knowing that he witnessed how I worked and rehearsed to get to the point of mastery. I chose to go with the latter.

The Takeaway

Overall, one has to understand that being in the trenches with one’s students is going to be quite the vulnerable experience. At the same time, modeling the process of what it means to persevere and work to the point of mastery is essential for knowing what it means to learn.

As always, I like to leave you with a song to connect with the ideas presented in my posts. The following song has two purposes: 1. It serves as an example of a song that I had challenges with during rehearsals because I felt that the original could not be covered.  2. It also serves as a thank you and farewell to Aretha Franklin who taught us all about what singing from the soul actually sounds like.  Enjoy…

I’m looking forward to hearing from you! Please feel welcomed to share an experience where you felt most vulnerable, or share your thoughts regarding being in the trenches…