What Are Essential Questions?
This term, like so many others, has become a buzzword in education over the last several years, but in secondary ELA, essential questions truly can be helpful for you when developing your units and curriculum.
Typically open-ended, essential questions are thought-provoking questions that will allow your students to connect the literature from your class to other texts and the world beyond the text. Grant Wiggins explains in much more detail here (a great article on the topic).
A well-formed essential question can pique your students’ interest from the first day of the unit and allow them to connect ancient literature to present-day problems.
Why Use EQs Instead of Anchor Texts As The Focus For the Unit
Most unit needs a strong anchor text for student to dive into, but when we frame a unit around the anchor text it can limit the depth of exploration. Plus, if the anhcor text seems dry or inaccesible to students, you risk having students tune out the whole unit.
An essential questions works differently.
Instead of a Romeo and Juliet unit you now have a unit with the EQ “What is the relationship between love and courage?” Now, your students examine the concepts of love, risk-taking, courage, and more. This EQ is thought-provoking: from day 1 of the unit, students can easily connect the concept to their own life which will always lead to more buy-in.
My Favorite EQs To Use For HS English
Here are a few of my favorite EQs to use; I’ve chosen these because each EQ works well with a wide range of classic literature as well as more modern literature, and each EQ can easily relate to students’ lives.
1.) Can courage be a contagious force inspiring others to take action?
I use this as a year-long EQ with my 9th-grade students. Many texts that students study in 9th grade have a protagonist who must act courageously in the face of a difficult situation. Also, 9th grade is a big transition year for students and requires them to act bravely in their own small (and large) ways. You can check out the full curriculum we have for 9th grade in the English Teacher Vault here (get the free PDF curriculum map for 9th grade).
Texts this EQ works well with:
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- Fahrenheit 451
- Refugee
- Everything, Everything
- 12 Angry Men
2.) What Makes a Compelling Story?
I love using this EQ toward the beginning of the school year. I like to remind students that answering this question does not mean that every story we read in this class will be something they personally consider compelling, but this gets the conversation going about how authors make intentional choices to keep their readers engaged –many of these choices allow us to discuss literary terms like point of view, suspense, conflict, and more.
Texts this EQ works well with:
- Nearly any short story, but a few of my favorites are:
- “The Test” by Theodore Thomas
- “The Pedestirian” by Rady Bradbury
- “The Dinner Party” by Mona Gardner
- “The Bet” by Anton Chekhov
- “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier
- You can also use The Moth podcast episodes. Consider sharing “Outdoor Camp” with your students.
3.) How Can Studying Dystopias Compel Us To Act Now?
Studying dystopian literature is usually a hit with high school students and this EQ allows us to make the connection between a fascinating and troublesome fictional world and the world in which we currently live. This also allows students to think about the fact that authors are purposefully crafting this dystopian world to be a magnification of our current society, which should naturally cause us to ask “What can be done about these problems?”
Texts this EQ works well with:
- Scythe by Neal Shusterman
- Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- Brave New World
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Legend by Marie Lu
- “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
- “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury
4.) What Is The Relationship Between Entrepreneurship and The American Dream?
Entrepreneurship is a fascinating topic that many of your students will find intriguing; some of your students might even dream of starting their own businesses (and some might have already started one!).
The Netflix series: Self-Made about Madame C.J. Walter (America’s first female self-made millionaire) is a compelling miniseries that allows students to wrestle with the question of entrepreneurship and the American dream. This text works well in an American Literature course but can be used in any high school course.
Fun fact: Madame C.J. Walker was not the first black female, self-made millionaire, but she was the first female self-made millionaire of any race.
Texts this EQ works with:
- Self-Made (mini series on Netflix about Madame C.J. Walker)
- Shoe Dog by Phil Night (the story of the founder of Nike)
5.) What Is The Value of Critiquing Society?
This EQ is more relevant now than ever, and is especially relevant to older high school students who have access to platforms where they can critique society themselves when they see injustice.
This EQ works well in conjunction with studying parody and satire. I like to bring modern-day connections into a unit with this EQ specifically using stand-up comedy, social media influencers like Elle Cordova, and shows like SNL.
Texts this EQ works well with:
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- Canterbury Tales
- A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift
- Don’t Look Up film
How To Integrate These Into Your Curriculum
Inside the English Teacher Vault you’ll find many of the unit plans listed above with these EQs as the guiding focus for our units. We have full curriculum maps that use several of these questions. Check out all our curriculum maps here (free PDF downloads available).
If you’d like to take a look at the units inside the vault and see how you can use an EQ as the central focus for a unit rather than focusing solely on one piece of literature, you can sign up for a $1 trial of the vault by clicking below:
