Is it possible to find the balance between trivial and impossibly difficult questions? As a matter of fact, it is. With a bit of thought and clear goals we should be able to frame what are called Essential Questions. But, why are Essential Questions so important in education? Well, these are the kind of questions which allow us to stay focused on “big ideas”, to take our students knowledge and shape it into engaging and effective work.
Now, how can we discriminate between questions that are really essential and others that are not? First, essential questions cannot be answered briefly and they do not have a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ response. The purpose of these questions is to stimulate thought, to provoke inquiry, and what is more, to generate more questions. These are the type of questions which we should definitely pose when planning our lessons. However, I cannot stop thinking of a much more practical use for essential questions: reading comprehension.
I have the fortune of working at a school where the English program is base mostly upon reading. Thus, it is necessary for us teachers to be constantly thinking of appropriate questions whose purpose is not precisely to just recall what the texts say. On the contrary, students must be able to judge and to make connections between what they read and what they observe in the world around them. Through essential questions, we enable our students to discover the real richness of the texts they read.
That´s the idea! students need to ask questions, make connections, discover things by themselves and of course guided by us, teachers.
ResponderEliminarI totally agree. Essential questions should promote debates, deeper thinking and of course more questions.
ResponderEliminarI agree with you.Providing students with meaningful readings can lead not only to foster debates and discussion but also to increase the amount of vocabulary which is an important tool to develop in order to succeed in these challenging tasks.
ResponderEliminarI agree, as everyone does. It is important for students to think and do things by themselves but we are responsibles for that thinking. we need and we have to give them some kind of guidence in order to improve that skill and giving to them some meaningful learning.
ResponderEliminar