Language Arts

Going Beyond “Identify a Story’s Problem”

My students were stuck telling me a story’s problem and solution. Let’s get thinking!

Improving “What’s The Chapter’s 🏛️ Big Idea?”

Let’s improve this bland Depth and Complexity question by getting really specific.

Don’t Just Paraphrase A Poem!

What if, instead, we re-wrote the poem in the style of a different poet?

Upgrading “Put The Events In Order”

I often see this question on language arts and social studies worksheets: “Put these events in order.” Yes, it’s low-level, but the real problem is that it’s a one-off. Let’s make a sequence of questions about the order of events.

Improving A Task About Designing A Character’s Bedroom

An under-developed task in which students designed a character’s room.

Going Beyond “Name That Genre!”

What can we do once students correctly identify a story’s genre?

Improving Identify the Figurative Language

What do we do after a student can identify the type of figurative language?

Practice Context Clues with Classics

Most context clue worksheets have incredibly low expectations.

Details Should Lead To A Big Idea

Here are two questions I’d ask students about a story What are three important 🌼 details about the main character? What is the story’s 🏛️ moral? Now, details naturally lead to big ideas. But in this case, I switched topics from “main character” to “big idea, ” which broke the natural movement. If I ask […]

Perspectives on Friendship in Charlotte’s Web

Asking students to “explain the importance” wasn’t as high-level as I thought.