Sample Essential Questions and Enduring Understandings
for English Core Learning Goals
Goal 1 Reading, Reviewing and Responding to Texts
The student will demonstrate the ability to respond to a text by employing personal experiences and critical analysis.
Essential Questions:- What lies beneath the surface of this text, and how can I uncover it?
- How much must a text relate to me and my experience to be worth reading?
- What is the best approach to reading any new book?
- What should I do if I am not understanding the text or not getting the point?
- Reading for meaning often requires imagining conversation with and questioning the author.
- Great literature provides rich and timeless insights into key themes, dilemmas, and challenges we face.
- Good readers use many strategies that work, and they quickly try another one when the one they are using doesn’t work.
- Good readers are never afraid or embarrassed to admit when they don’t understand. Asking questions – of a text, of a teacher, or another reader – is what all good readers do.
Goal 2 Composing in a Variety of Modes
The student will demonstrate the ability to compose in a variety of modes by developing content, employing specific forms, and selecting language appropriate for a particular audience and purpose.
Essential Questions:- What approach to the text makes the most sense, in light of purpose and audience? Which other principles should guide my writing?
- Where do ideas for writing come from? How methodical or intuitive should I be in my writing?
- What do good writers do? How do effective writers hook and hold their readers?
- Why write? What can only writing enable?
- Though there are as many ways to write as there are writers, some approaches are more efficient and effective than others.
- It isn’t good writing if it doesn’t achieve its purpose with its intended audience.
- Writing is not simply a method of sharing information and ideas that are already clear to a writer; instead, it can be a process through which the writer clarifies, organizes, and develops his/her own thoughts.
Goal 3 Controlling Language
The student will demonstrate the ability to control language by applying the conventions of Standard English in writing and speaking.
Essential Questions:- How can I use my knowledge of the structure of language to write more effectively?
- When is it crucial to follow all the rules of grammar and when is it ok—maybe even desirable—to break the rules?
- How can I help readers understand what I’ve written?
- Writers who communicate effectively make choices about grammatical and mechanical rules of writing based on the purpose.
- Most of the time, you obey the rules to better communicate; sometimes you deliberately break the rules to better communicate. The secret is to know what the rules are, when to obey them, and when it is okay to break them.
- When we write, we use conventions of language (capitalization, punctuation, correct spelling, etc.) to help others understand what we have written.
Goal 4 Evaluating the Content, Organization, and Language Use of Texts
The student will demonstrate the ability to evaluate the content, organization, and language use of texts.
Essential Questions:- Is this an effective piece of text?
- How does how the author writes affect my analysis and interpretation (my understanding) of text?
- What can I understand about the message in this text through the writer’s choice of language?
- The author of an effective piece of text achieves his or her purpose with the intended audience.
- As readers analyze and evaluate the author’s use of language, they understand how word choice enhances the effectiveness of the text.
- Authors reveal the message of the text through the careful use of language. By paying close attention to tone, diction, transitions, etc., the reader better understand the author and text.
Stefani N. Miller, WicomicoCountyPublic Schools, 2007