ToK Essay Activator Questions

A set of questions to help students to develop their arguments at the beginning of the ToK Essay writing process.

The ToK Essay Activators are questions that students can use at the beginning of their ToK Essay Planning Process. They are a way to start to understand the essay title. They’re the foundation of thinking.

The video explanation of this resource is linked here, and below.

The beginning of the process

The firstl stage of thinking about the ToK Prescribed Titles is foundational for success later in the process. Unfortunately, this initial stage is often an overlooked activity. Giving students individual thinking time to form their own understanding of the ToK Essay is crucial. Forming a solid personal understanding of the essay early helps when they hear other people's interpretations of the essay in the later stages of essay writing. If students who don't have a solid personal understanding of the essay they may be tempted to use other people's interpretations. Accordingly they will then, probably, find it harder to develop in terms of analysis, evaluation and implications. The higher order analysis of knowledge arguments is easier for the student to develop if the original knowledge argument has been developed by the student themselves. This is why spending individual time at the beginning of the essay process is foundational for future success.

ToK Essay Activators are a set of questions that students can use to improve their understanding of the ToK Essay.

The ToK Essay Activators are questions that students can use to guide their thinking. They are useful at the beginning of the process. The questions help to develop personal knowledge arguments relating to the prescribed title.

The ToK Essay Activators are available (for free) at:

PDF Version link

Google Slides Version link

Google Slides as PDF

Students who are looking for more help to write the ToK Essay check out our Student Support Page, and the Ebook "How to write the ToK Essay in 6 easy steps".

Notes on May 23 ToK Essay Titles are coming soon (Mid September), and will be available from this link.

There are also some great tips at this blog.

If there are further resources that you would like me to develop do not hesitate to get in touch. I can also help with curriculum planning: Daniel@TokToday.com.

Daniel, Lisbon,
Aug 2022

Read More