Essential Questions

Essential questions are questions that frame a lesson, unit, or course and are designed to guide and deepen inquiry and student thinking.

Popularized by Ted Sizer’s Coalition of Essential Schools, essential questions have no one right answer or yes/no answer and are intended to engage a wide spectrum of students in thinking about (rather than just memorizing) ideas, concepts, theories, etc. These questions must be expressed in language that students can readily understand: examples might include “What new ‘right’ would you like to see added to the Bill of Rights?” or “What big questions in science do you think will get answered in your lifetime?