Chapter V: Essential Questions: Doorways to Understanding (Wiggins & McTighe , 2005)

This chapter is oriented towards the “essential questions” as one of the most important ideas when planning. That is to say, essential questions should be incorporated in every teacher’s planning design in order to frame and direct the teaching to the desired goals.

First, essential questions in planning (and of course in the actual class) are fundamental because they provoke inquiry and more questions to be develop. In fact, the act of questioning is intrinsically related to the process of understanding as final goal in teaching and, I should say in life. Their purpose is the stimulation of critical thinking and as I said before the understanding. For instance, If students are exposed to these essential questions they will be more likely to develop better and objective judgments and they will transfer what they have learnt to other areas of their lives meaningfully.

Second, what makes a questions to be essential? They can be called essentials if they direct students to the big ideas of a content or skill. The idea is that they are essential because they are capable of leading students to face the very heart of topics in order to obtain a deeper understanding from them. As the chapter suggests, the essential is given by the vitality these questions have so to speak. It should be significant to students and they should encourage them to be engaged with the topics taught. These questions have four connotations: a) they are timeless, that is to say they are debatable as far as a person changes his viewpoints according to his experience of that particular question/analysis in life; b) they refer to the foundation and boundaries of a subject, that means they have history and have been debatable in its field; c) the essential is found if these questions help students to understand problematical ideas, they should “make sense” to students; d) finally, they are essential if they engage particular and different set of students, so these questions should catch and grasp the students’ attention.

Third, the importance of essential questions in skill areas. This idea has to do with inquiry in those areas where to manage skills is the main purpose to be achieved. These question should be asked when performance is taking place. They are really important because they are not related to content but how students have mastered skills and when and in which context they have to use those skills. Also, essential questions are related to big ideas. For example, critical thinking is a skill which students have to use when teachers ask them for the big ideas. So, in that moment when inquiring students know what skill they should use because the questions are making sense to them.