However you use essential questions in a final assessment, you should then work backward to make a plan for your unit. This The Hate U Give Discussion Activity includes all five of the essential questions from this blog post.įor The Hate U Give, I had my students answer all five of the essential questions I gave them to discuss in a small group, high-stakes discussion. (You can grab my The Hate U Give Discussion Activity here.)

In fact, I do this in my Black Lives Matter Literature Circle if you’re interested in expanding your unit. Because these three novels share similar themes, you can ask similar essential questions while studying any of them. In fact, I re-use some of the same essential questions that I ask with The Hate U Give in my novel studies for Dear Martin and All American Boys. It should be applicable to anyone’s life. That answers the question but certainly isn’t essential information.Įssential questions should be able to be answered by reading many books. Maybe students learned some facts about Malcolm X or The Black Panthers from The Hate U Give. So, you might be tempted instead to ask, “What can you learn from The Hate U Give?” But this still isn’t great because it’s dependent on the book. Twenty years from now, who really cares what Starr learned? We want to know what our students learned. While this might be a great essay question, it’s certainly not an essential question. So, for example, a bad essential question for The Hate U Give would be one like, “What does Starr learn in The Hate U Give?” As students read, they’ll also prepare a social justice speech. In this literature circle unit, students will choose between three Black Lives Matter movement-inspired novels: The Hate U Give, Dear Martin, or All American Boys. If your question can only be answered by one book, the question is not essential. So, how do know a question is essential? What Makes a Question Essential?Ī really great essential question is one that can be answered by many novels. Essential questions should help students take the lessons from a book and apply those lessons to their own lives. Essential questions, you might call them.Īn essential question should help readers transcend the novel. So we need to ask some big questions that will connect what we read to how we live. And I want my students to experience that. Literature should help us understand the world around us and our place in it.

Literature should do more than help us become better readers and writers. This pattern isn’t bad if your a relatively new teacher. Grab my The Hate U Give Unit here complete with essential questions used throughout!

The hate u give novel