As a new teacher, I spun my wheels creating Choice Boards or Extension Menus or whatever you want to call them.
Now, I realize that this led to way more work for me – and worse tasks for my students. I just didn’t have time craft NINE quality tasks!
So nowadays I try to write just one great task. That’s hard enough! (I wrote all about the problem with menus here.)
My Character Analysis Menu
Here’s a sample menu I would hand out to my students:
Now, there are some ok ideas on that menu. But they’re SO underdeveloped. They need serious care and attention. So let’s pick just one. I’ll go with the playlist task to upgrade:
Build a playlist of three songs showing a characterʼs growth during a story. Explain how these songs show the characterʼs change over time.
It’s interesting, but under-developed. That blurb is all my students had to go on. So, I’d use a few of my techniques for better questions. I’d break it up. I’d climb Bloom’s. I’d scaffold. I’d model. And I’d test my soup!
Let’s Sequence It
At Byrdseed.TV, I show how I’d break this one up. But here’s the gist:
Part 1 would be about picking three moments in the story that show character change.
Part 2 would be about the songs that correspond to those moments.
And I would not stop here, because then I’ll get “I’m done, now what do I do?” questions. I want to plan ahead for early finishers, not be surprised when they arrive.
So, in Part 3 I might set this up:
- Imagine that your character DJs a party. They’ll introduce each song, explaining to the crowd why it’s important to them. Write this scene.
- Now, another character approaches the DJ. They are touched by those songs. Pick a character that would relate to the same set of songs. Write the scene in which Character 1 and Character 2 discuss their similarities. Perhaps Character 2 would replace one of the songs….
By focusing on just one of those nine choices on the menu, I could take my students so much deeper!
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