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….