Chapter 5: Essential Questions: Doorways to Understanding

Questions are the most important thing in life. Through questions, human have discovered the world and the universe, and also themselves.

When we teach, to encourage question making is essential. The skills that question making develops is critical thinking. As teachers of English, we should not teach how to read or how to write, or speak. We should teach to question everything, to question every little thing and our students would come up with answers that would fortify  their perspective of the world.

An inquiry-based learning is beneficial to both students and teachers, for students develop their thinking through their answers, and the teacher learns from his students.

In this chapter, Wiggins talks about the essential questions. It is in fact really easy to ask questions which answers are simple, but as teachers the trick in here relies on the kind of questions you make to your students. Do these questions make them think? Or do these questions just leave them in the same place where they started? The trick is to ask questions that can lead your students somewhere. Hence, their learning and understanding could become fruitful.