1. From Paper to Practice:
Using the Essential Questions Matrix
ISSN Summer Institute 2016
Honor Moorman

2. What makes a question “essential”?
Concept Attainment Process

3. Sorting Activity
• First, sort the questions into 6 related pairs
• Then, for each pair, decide which one is an
“essential” question and which one is not

4. Sorting Activity
Essential Questions Not Essential Questions

5. Sorting Activity
Essential Questions
• How do the arts shape, as
well as reflect, a culture?
• What do effective problem
solvers do when they get
stuck?
• How strong is the scientific
evidence?
Not Essential Questions
• What common artistic
symbols were used by the
Incas and the Mayans?
• What steps did you follow
to get your answer?
• What is a variable in
scientific investigation?

6. Sorting Activity
Essential Questions
• Is there ever a “just” war?
• How can I sound more like a
native speaker?
• Who is a true friend?
Not Essential Questions
• What key event sparked
World War I?
• What are common Spanish
colloquialisms?
• Who is Maggie’s best friend
in the story?

7. What are the defining characteristics of
an Essential Question?
• What traits do they have in common?
• How do they differ from the others?

8. What is your working definition for
the concept of an Essential
Question?

10. Good Essential Questions
• Open-ended
• Thought-provoking, intellectually engaging
• Require higher-order thinking
• About important, transferable ideas
• Raise additional questions, spark inquiry
• Require support and justification
• Recur over time
Source: Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding
by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins

11. The term “Essential” means . . .
• Important and timeless
• Elemental or foundational
• Vital or necessary for personal understanding

12. Essential Questions are . . .
• Timeless
• Open (no clear or single answer)
• Culturally universal

13. Essential Questions
• Asked to stimulate ongoing thinking and inquiry
• Raise more questions
• Spark discussion and debate
• Asked and reasked throughout the unit (and
maybe the year)
• Demand justification and support
• “Answers” may change as understanding deepens

14. Why use essential questions?
• Signal that inquiry is the goal of education
• Make it more likely that the unit will be
intellectually engaging
• Help to clarify and prioritize standards
• Provide transparency for students
• Encourage and model metacognition for students
• Provide opportunities for intra- and
interdisciplinary connections
• Support meaningful differentiation

15. “Save the Last Word” discussion
• First person selects one of the reasons for using
essential questions and reads it aloud to the
group
• Everyone else in the group takes turns
commenting on that reason
• The person who selected the reason has the “last
word” to respond to what others have said or
explain why s/he chose it in the first place
• Repeat this process until everyone in the group
has initiated a short conversation about a
different reason

16. Designing Essential Questions
• By unpacking standards
• Based on skills and strategies
• From possible or predictable misconceptions
• Around facets of understanding
• Overarching  topical; topical  overarching
• From big ideas/enduring understandings

17. Overarching and Topical
Essential Questions
Overarching EQs
• Whose “story” (perspective) is
this?
• How are structure and
function related?
• In what ways does art reflect,
as well as shape, culture?
• How do authors use story
elements to establish mood?
• What makes a system?
• What are common factors in
the rise and fall of powerful
nations?
Topical EQs
• How did Native Alaskans view
the “settlement” of their land?
• How does the structure of
various insects help them
survive?
• What do ceremonial masks
reveal about the Inca culture?
• How does John Updike use
setting to establish a mood?
• How do our various body
systems interact?
• Why did the Soviet Union
collapse?

18. Designing Essential Questions
• By unpacking standards
• Based on skills and strategies
• From possible or predictable misconceptions
• Around facets of understanding
• Overarching  topical; topical  overarching
• From big ideas/enduring understandings

19. Enduring Understandings
• Provide the learning context that anchor unit of
study
• Are the BIG IDEAS that reside at the heart of the
discipline
• Have value beyond the classroom
• Require uncoverage of abstract or often
misunderstood ideas

20. Big Ideas
• Concepts
• Themes
• Issues and debates
• Paradox
• Complex processes
• Persistent problems and
challenges
• Influential theories
• Established policies
• Key assumptions
• Differing perspectives

21. Enduring Understandings
• Important ideas and core processes
• Central to the discipline
• Have lasting value beyond the classroom
• Go beyond facts and skills to larger concepts,
principles, or processes
• Synthesize what students should understand (not
just know or do) as a result of study
• Articulate what students should revisit over
course of lifetime

22. Worth being familiar with
Important to know and do
Enduring Understandings

23. Designing EUs
• What do you want students to really remember
long after they have forgotten the discrete facts?
• What is your goal for student understanding
based on the standards?
• What is the essence of this particular unit of
study?
• How can you help students make connections?
• How can you help students transfer learning?

24. Enduring Understandings and
Essential Questions
are two sides of the same coin

25. Enduring Understandings and
Essential Questions
Enduring Understandings
• Great literature from various
cultures explores enduring
themes and reveals recurrent
aspects of the human
condition.
• Humans process both verbal
and nonverbal messages
simultaneously. Your
communication becomes
more effective when verbal
and nonverbal messages are
aligned.
Possible Essential Questions
• How (much) can stories
from other places and times
be about us?
• What makes a great speaker
great?
• How do great speakers use
nonverbal messages?

27. Unit Design
• Focus on Big Ideas
• Enduring Understandings: What specific insights
about big ideas do we want students to leave
with?
• What essential questions will frame the teaching
and learning, pointing toward key issues and
ideas, and suggest meaningful and provocative
inquiry into content?
• What should students know and be able to do?

28. Sorting Activity #2
• First, sort the questions into 6 related pairs
• Then, for each pair, decide which one is a “draft”
question and which one is a “revised” or improved
essential question

29. Sorting Activity #2
Draft Essential Question Revised Essential Question

30. Sorting Activity #2
Draft Essential Question
• What is nonfiction?
• How does this diet match
up with the government’s
nutritional guidelines?
• Are there any benefits from
the deforestation of the rain
forests?
Revised Essential Question
• How much license does a
writer of nonfiction have to
make a point?
• What should we eat?
• To what extent do the costs
outweigh the benefits of
deforestation of the rain
forests?

31. Sorting Activity #2
Draft Essential Question
• Who speaks Spanish in our
community?
• Is your answer accurate?
• What distinguished
Impressionist art?
Revised Essential Question
• How well can you thrive in
our community speaking
only English?
• Is your answer
appropriately precise for
this situation?
• Why and how do artists
break with tradition? What
are the effects?

32. What makes a high-quality Essential
Question?
• How are each of the revised questions
stronger than the first draft?

33. Review the Essential Questions
for Globally Significant Issues
Organized by Discipline
Organized by Issue

34. How can we use the Essential
Questions for Global Issues in . . .
• Planning
• Instruction
• Assessment

35. EQs in Planning
• Helps you connect content to larger global
questions/issues
• Helps you break down what skills and
concepts are needed to develop the enduring
understanding – steps needed to guide
students there
• Helps you develop daily objectives that tie to
the larger themes of the unit

36. EQs in Planning
• Helps you identify the language objectives
students will need in order to engage with
the question/content
• Enables faculty to map the curriculum
vertically and horizontally to strengthen
connections, refine progressions, and
address gaps
• Provides the common thread for
interdisciplinary projects

37. EQs in Instruction
• Introduce/kick off the unit
– Initial discussion or debate based on students’
prior knowledge
– Gallery walk or silent/written conversation such as
“chalk talk”
• Use questions to guide students’ inquiry, to
help them notice/discover key concepts
• Challenge students to defend their
ideas/answers and identify gaps or
counterpoints

38. EQs in Assessment
• Formative assessments, such as exit ticket,
throughout the unit
• Project: now, with everything you’ve learned,
create an essay, presentation, visual, video,
etc. to share your answer to the EQ
• By aligning the assessment to the EQ, we can
be sure we are evaluating what we’ve
established as the most important learning in
the unit

39. Thank You!