This Wednesday, we had our first look at the TOK essay titles. This essay asks students to examine knowledge in relation to different areas of knowledge. The areas of knowledge covered in the TOK course are: history, mathematics, natural sciences, human sciences, and the arts.
While the final submission for this essay still feels like the distant future, we have started the process of learning how to break down the question. Each question in TOK (and really most questions in life) provides us with multiple avenues of responding. As such it is important that we clarify what is being asked and also how we are going to answer. Here are some of the steps that we may take:
1. Breakdown the question – what are the key points of the question?
2. Identify essential vocabulary within the question.
2a. What is it asking you to explore?
2b. Are there any ambiguous terms that you will need to define for your essay? (There usually are.)
3. How will you provide multiple perspectives in exploring this?
3a. Does each area of knowledge see this differently? Are there different ways of knowing even within the area of knowledge?
The goal of the essay is to show an understanding of the multifaceted nature of knowledge and how different perspectives are not only possible, but should be expected. The exploration of this essay should help students be more open-minded and creative in their thinking.