Essential Question Workshop: 3 New EQs for Teaching Poetry [S6 E198]

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Do you struggle with knowing where to start when it comes to writing essential questions? We completely understand the challenge and we’re here to help!

Essential questions play a crucial role in guiding lessons and engaging students in meaningful discussions. Knowing how to start crafting essential questions can be a challenge for some teachers. The truth is, there is no one place to start. It’s a process and you’ll likely refine your EQs year after year to make them stronger.

In this episode, we are sharing three essential questions for teaching poetry that showcase different ways for you to just start learning how to formulate your own EQs. We’re breaking down our thought process behind each EQ and how each could be used in your ELA classes.

Topics discussed:

  • Our thought process for creating essential questions for poetry

  • Essential question idea #1: Which is more capable of healing the physical world, or the linguistic one?

  • Essential question idea #2: How does our perception of nature influence our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world? 

  • Essential question idea #3: To what extent is the power of language capable of challenging a set of beliefs?  

  • How we use mini units to break up the year 

Resources Mentioned:

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More about Brave New Teaching:

Join hosts Amanda Cardenas (Mud & Ink Teaching) and Marie Morris (The Caffeinated Classroom) in discussions about being brave, trying new things, and all things teaching! As seasoned classroom teachers, Amanda and Marie bring their experience, insight, energy, and oh, so many opinions and ideas... It's time for all teachers to take their classroom and teaching practice into their own hands!

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