Educational Leadership - September 2015

Grant Wiggins and Denise Wilbur

The well-known aphorism that “writing is revision” applies particularly well to crafting essential questions. With more than 30 years’ experience in teaching through questions and helping educators create great unit-framing queries, we’ve repeatedly seen the wisdom of this saying.

But what makes a question essential in the first place? Essential questions foster the kinds of inquiries, discussions, and reflections that help learners find meaning in their learning and achieve deeper thought and better quality in their work. Essential questions meet the following criteria:

n They stimulate ongoing thinking and inquiry. n They’re arguable, with multiple plausible answers. n They raise further questions. n They spark discussion and debate. n They demand evidence and reasoning because varying answers exist. n They point to big ideas and pressing issues. n They fruitfully recur throughout the unit or year.

n The answers proposed are tentative and may change in light of new experiences and deepening understanding (McTighe & Wiggins, 2013).

Here are some examples of good essential questions: To what extent does where you live influence how you live? What should we make of outliers—error, anomaly, or insight? What should our diet and wellness plans be in a world of constantly changing advice from experts?