Customer Reviews

What's the Big Idea?: Question-Driven Units to Motivate Reading, Writing, and Thinking

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Look beyond the title. That's my advice for anyone thinking about purchasing this book. I bought the book out of respect for its author, an extraordinarily thoughtful teacher who has contributed much to the teaching profession.

What is especially valuable about What's the Big Idea is not just the "big ideas"--or guiding questions of the book's title. While questions may help a teacher structure a lesson, the book moves beyond being merely an application of the essential questions pedagogy. The book presents many practical ideas for structuring and sustaining deep levels of student inquiry into whatever the subject of study. And that is the book's grandness--wonderful lessons that help teachers create conditions of deep engagement that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls flow.

In addition to the materials in the book itself, there are helpful links from the book to parallel resources on the publisher's website that make the printing of clear copies of handouts easier.

There are books out there that attempt to frame teaching and learning through one narrow theory or approach. What's the Big Idea is different. In it, Jim Burke tells a wonderful story, a story informed by years of teaching, supported by research, and immersed within the individual journeys of his students to explore, learn, and discover.

Jim Burke has done it again--and perhaps better than ever before! What's the Big Idea? Question-Driven Units to Motivate Reading, Writing, and Thinking not only provides a researched foundation for implementing inquiry-based instruction, but it also provides a clear picture of what goes on in Jim's high school English classes every day. Through this book Jim models how to motivate all students to engage in rich literary experiences that are tied to standards-based instruction. The text is laced with his activity handouts (also available online for classroom use), pictures of how he models specific skills, and student work samples.

Jim's claim is that questions can and should be the core of our instruction--the foundation for delivering our curriculum; the result will be motivated students engaged in high level critical thinking throughout the year. He states, "...education should disturb when possible; it should challenge students' perspectives, inspire curiosity, and pose questions about why things are the way they are." (78)

To demonstrate the role inquiry plays within instructional units, Jim takes us through his teaching of Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men, and Crime and Punishment so we can witness his instruction and student results from beginning to end. Another unit he shares is an end-of-year project focused on independent reading experiences in his senior AP course. At the same time, Jim shows how he differentiates instruction for struggling students by describing how he scaffolds lessons when necessary so that all students are able to master the same skills. He states, "I began the year committed to the idea that my students could do challenging work, wrestle with big questions and complex ideas, if I guided my instruction not by the questions, `How low must I go?' but, instead by, `What must I do to make real success a possibility for all my students without lowering my standards?' In short, I treated them as though they could learn to do everything I taught, and they pretty much did." (77)

Specifically, Jim addresses a number of uses of incorporating essential questions: to build background knowledge, to teach interviewing skills and connect them to note-taking and synthesis of information, to encourage students to generate their own questions, to motivate writing and thinking through blogging, and more. He emphasizes factual, inductive, and analytical questioning while also guiding students to determine which questions are the important ones to ask.

Particularly helpful are his handouts, including a thesis generator, graphic organizers, reading guides that still allow for reading flow, and unit planning sheets which allow us to take Jim's ideas and match them to our own curricula. The appendix also includes "The Big Questions" associated with the McDougal Littell Literature series and a study guide for teacher discussion of the entire book.

For further insight into this text, log on to [...] and participate in Jim's online book discussion.

Here are lessons and advice based on successful experiences with a wide range of Jim Burke's students, all based on the concept of using inquiry as the foundation of units, lessons, and learning.

Jim draws on and makes connections with many of the best contemporary thinkers as he provides the theoretical bases for his chapters. Although many of the lessons deal with specific texts, they are easily adaptable to any works a teacher might be using in class.

This important book is supported by superb graphics, online access to handouts and organizers, and useful appendices.

This book paints a very engaging picture of Jim Burke's AP classroom. It's what I call a "neat ideas" book. It's packed with "neat ideas": activities that sound engaging and valuable and intellectual. I could print out the handouts and use them in my class very easily. (If I taught AP English)

It doesn't, however, teach me enough to design my own curriculum or thoughtfully use questioning in my own classroom context.

Though I'm not finished yet, I can tell you a give a thumbs up to the content. Thoughtful and specific, Jim Burke provides an easy-to-understand narrative about essential questions. I do have a warning for Kindle users. The book does not neatly translate its format to the smaller Kindle. I just now found the blurb on the book's Amazon page that warns about the text layout being optimized for larger screens (Kindle DX, computer screen, iPad, etc.). My fault, I'll be certain to check that out from now on. Had I known ahead of time, I would have purchased the paperback.

Great content, though!

WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA? QUESTION-DRIVEN UNITS TO MOTIVATE READING, WRITING, AND THINKING shows how planning around questions gives students tools to understand content, deepen comprehension, and clarify thinking. Teachers will appreciate this narrowed focus on the role of question-and-answer in the learning process, and will find this an important addition to any education collection.

As a fairly new teacher, I love it when I find a book that helps me do my job better. This book does that. As teachers we're often given things like Essential Questions in our curriculum, and often these have little bearing on what we do. Mr. Burke takes the idea and shows how to connect the lesson(s) to the students' lives, thereby giving them meaning. Wonderful concept which I'm beginning to apply now. Also, the lessons and ideas provided are very useful, and it was so nice to be able to download the original blacklines for these lessons (and they came in Word format so I could customize them a bit). Great buy!

Although I've taught high school English for fifteen years, I am still an avid reader of teacher resource books. Burke's books, along with Kelly Gallagher's, are among the best and most practical of this genre. Burke provides tons of examples of how he focuses lessons around a big idea, using examples from Of Mice and Men and other commonly taught works. Buy it and see for yourself. You'll refer to again and again and change the way you view lesson planning. Good stuff!

Another great Jim Burke book for secondary ELA who want to create flow in the classroom.