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The Essential Question

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The Essential Question What is it? Essential: something inherent, needed, basic. Question: an expression of inquiry that requires or invites an informative reply. – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: The Essential Question


1
The Essential Question
2
What is it?
  • Essential something inherent, needed, basic.
  • Question an expression of inquiry that requires
    or invites an informative reply.
  • Inquiry a close examination of a matter for
    information or truth

3
Characteristics of an Essential Question
  • Has no right or wrong answer
  • May start with how, why or which
  • Is open ended cannot be answered with a yes
    or a no
  • Leads us to ask other questions
  • Requires us to analyze information and make our
    own judgments, conclusions or decisions
  • Deals with issues of great importance to us as
    human beings, citizens, and/or individuals
  • Challenges us to make connections between what we
    learn in various subjects and larger world issues

4
Subsidiary Question
  • Subsidiary questions support and help answer
    Essential Questions
  • Subsidiary questions uncover the who, what,
    where, when, why, which, and how of Essential
    Questions

5
The Process of Developing an Essential Question
6
Where do I start?
7
Step 1
  • Consider what you know and what you need to know
    about a topic

8
Step 1
  • Ask and answer the who, what, where, why and how
    questions about your topic.
  • You must be informed before you begin to
    formulate your essential question

9
Step 1
  • As you research, ask yourself the following
    questions
  • Does this topic arouse my natural curiosity?
  • If so, what does it make me wonder about?
  • Why is this topic an important one to explore?
  • What connections can I make between the topic and
    my life?

10
Step 1
  • Practical considerations
  • Can this question be adequately answered in the
    amount of time given?
  • Can I access published information that will help
    me answer this question?
  • Where do I begin to look for information?
  • Has this research been done before? If so, how
    can I investigate it from a different angle to
    make it my own?

11
Now that Ive done some research what next?
12
Step 2
  • Narrow your focus
  • Example 1
  • Civil Rights gt Civil Rights Leaders gt Malcolm X gt
    Extremisms gt
  • Example 2
  • Westward Expansion gt Mexican American War gt
    Manifest Destiny as Justification

13
OK now what?
14
Step 3
  • Create an essential question

15
Step 3
  • Heres how using Example 1
  • Civil Rights gt Civil Rights Leaders gt Malcolm X
    gt Extremisms gt
  • Preliminary question
  • Was Malcolm Xs militant approach justified?
  • Essential question
  • To what extent was Malcolm Xs militant approach
    harmful or helpful to achieving the goal of the
    civil rights movement?

16
Step 3
  • Heres how using Example 2
  • Westward Expansion gt Mexican American War gt
    Manifest Destiny as Justification
  • Preliminary question(s)
  • Are Americans morally superior?
  • To what extent has our foreign policy in Latin
    America bee driven by our belief in our moral
    superiority?
  • Essential question
  • To what extent did our foreign policy in the
    Mexican American War and our intervention in
    Haiti reflect our belief in our moral superiority?

17
Step 3
  • What makes these essential questions?
  • To what extent was Malcolm Xs militant approach
    harmful or helpful to achieving the goal of the
    civil rights movement?
  • To what extent did our foreign policy in the
    Mexican American War and our intervention in
    Haiti reflect our belief in our moral
    superiority?
  • They require you to
  • create new knowledge
  • compare and contrast
  • and form a judgment.

18
Next step?
19
Step 4
  • Continue creating more focused questions
    (subsidiary questions) that will guide you
    through your research and help you develop an
    answer to your essential question.
  • These questions should be more focused and
    directly related to your essential question.

20
And finally?
21
Step 5
  • Formulate an answer to your essential question
    based upon your research.

22
Sources
  • http//www.fairfield.k12.ct.us/ludlowehs/cludloweh
    s22/essential_question.htm
  • http//www-personal.umich.edu/krajcik/DQ.html
  • Websters II New Riverside University Dictionary
  • Photos found through Google images
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