Creating an Essential Question Inquiry Project

Rules for Producing Questions Ask as many questions as you can Do not stop to answer, judge or to discuss the questions Write down every question exactly as it is stated Change any statement into a question

Your Question-Focus (Q-Focus) (Today, we will use a Theme Topic) examples: love, identity, survival, loyalty, growing up, capitalism, democracy, nature, war, death, individual’s obligation to society

Theme Topics: Choose a movie that you know well Generate a list of single-word or single-phrase “thematic topics” for your movie… Make as long a list as possible… Now choose the two you think are the most important

Generate Questions: For your theme topics, create questions about them… as many as possible: Example: If the movie was a comedy, and “humour” was a thematic topic… Why do we find things funny? Why are some things funny for me but not for you? What is the definition of “humour”? How have people’s sense of humours changed over time? Do we still find things funny that were considered funny in the past?

In your group of 2-3 -write any questions that come to mind -your recorder should create questions too

Categorizing Questions CLOSED-ENDED -can be answered briefly with yes or no -have one or only a few answers -may not spark discussion/debate OPEN-ENDED -cannot be answered quickly; require explanation -have numerous answers -can spark discussion or debate

Look at your questions: Mark them as “O” for open-ended and as “C” for closed-ended.

Choose a close-ended question and turn it into an open-ended question Practice Choose a close-ended question and turn it into an open-ended question

Working in your groups… Each of you chooses two questions that… most interest you. you consider to be the most important – the questions that are most important for understanding the movie… *Identify them by writing your name beside each

SHARE QUESTIONS with your class! Name of movie? Which question interested you the most?

And now… Working individually, begin the same process to create Essential Inquiry Questions regarding your Personal Novel!

Steps to Generating an Essential Question: Make a list of key thematic topics from your book (especially focusing on ones that interest you). Create as many questions relating to each of these topics as you can – do not stop to judge them yet. Change any statement into a question. Categorize questions: open or close-ended. Change close-ended questions to open-ended. Decide which ONE is most interesting to you, most important for you.