Once you have determined your theme and done some preliminary research to make sure there are enough authentic resources out there, it’s time to move on to Step 2: Writing an essential question.

I find the essential question of the unit to be…well, essential to the planning of a unit!  An essential question provides the focus for the whole unit.  It is from this question that you will be planning the goals and activities of the unit.  A good essential question can also help you to eliminate those “textbook” requirements that you just don’t need anymore.

It’s not easy to write an essential question.  However, there are a few things that you can keep in mind to help you when attempting to craft your question.

• It should be important and timeless.  The question should require students to think critically.  Students should want to continue to think and process in order to answer the question.  It should spark creativity.  You should be able to come back over and over again to this question.
• The answer should be open-ended and unable to be answered with a single answer.  Students should not be able memorize an answer.
• It should be globally relevant.  In order to answer the question, students should explore themselves, their community and the world.
• It can be asked and answered in the target language.  Why?  Because this is a world language class!
• It can be differentiated.  Students are not required to answer the question in the same way.  Ask yourself if your lowest performing student could answer the question.
• Everyone at all proficiency levels should be able to answer the question.  Answers will be vary based on proficiency level and age.  A young, novice student may be able to point to pictures to answer the question or respond with a list of words.  As you progress through the proficiency levels, the answers can become more detailed and refined.

A few words of advice to add here:  Even though I have this listed as Step 2 in the process, you most likely will come back to amend the question as you plan the unit.  As you get further into your planning, you will find yourself revising and updating your question.  That’s totally OK and expected.  Also, it is reasonable to assume that your students may not have the language to answer the question at the onset of the unit.  You will need to guide them to use  language they already know, in addition to adding to their language in the learning of the unit to answer the question.

Let’s look at my novice-mid example of where we go in the city.  If you recall, in my last post, I wanted students to explore their own town, our larger American city, a city in France and then other Francophone cities.  I knew I wanted them to compare and contrast with their own community, and explore what a city says about its people. When I first started drafting my question, I was thinking in terms of why people go places in their city.  My questions looked like: How are world cities different or similar from my town?  (That seemed like a good start, but I felt it was missing something). Why do we go places? (Better)  What city places are important in our lives?  (It was getting better and more open-ended).  The problem I had with these questions was that even though they allowed for a compare/contrast and a why people go places, I wanted something a little more.  I wanted students to think critically about what is important to have in a city.  For instance, my students might all think it’s important to have a gym in a town, but is more important than a library or a school or a hospital?  What if there is a finite amount of space?  What is essential?

So I ended up with, “What makes an ideal city and why?”  The question is important and timeless.  It can spark creativity by asking students to design an ideal city.  They will need to think critically to determine what needs to be included.  It is timeless in that as they continue their education, they can expand their thinking about what happens when essential places are not in a city.  It is open-ended; there is no one correct answer.  It is globally relevant.  Students will need to explore other world cities and think of their city as well.  It can easily be asked in the target language for novice-mid students and they will be able to answer it in the TL at the conclusion of the unit.  It can be differentiated.  My lower achieving students can answer with words or chunks of words and my higher achieving students can answer with sentences and even strings of sentences.  All proficiency levels could answer this question.  Higher proficiency levels could discuss sustainability and overpopulation of cities.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, I said that a good essential question can also help you to eliminate those “textbook” requirements that you just don’t need anymore.  I knew right away what I wanted to eliminate: giving directions.  I can’t tell you how much time I wasted in the past just trying to teach my high school students to read a map so that they could give fake directions.  And all that time I was speaking English!  What a waste.  Everyone today has a smartphone and just uses an app to get places.  To answer my essential question, students do not have to say “turn right and then go straight”.  This is one of those things that is no longer necessary.  Sure, driving those Hot Wheels cars around maps was fun, but it was not culturally relevant nor was it communicatively purposeful.

You have your theme and your essential question.  Next up: Step 3- Determining Unit Goals.   A bientôt!