If the U.S. History class will spend a month on a topic such as the Civil War, students explore the events and the experience with a mind toward casting light upon one of the following questions, or they develop Essential Questions of their own . . . Some say our country remains wounded by the slavery experience and the Civil War. Military officers often complain that the effective conduct of modern war is impeded by political interference and popular pressures on the home front. For more on Essential Questions read this other selection . These are questions which combine to help us build answers to our Essential Questions .
Big questions spawn families of smaller questions which lead to insight.
The more skillful we and our students become at formulating and then categorizing Subsidiary Questions , the more success we will have constructing new knowledge. All of the question categories listed and explained below are types of Subsidiary Questions. Later we can move these around until they end up along side of related questions. This movement is one advantage of software. This approach has the benefit of spontaneity.