What Makes An Antagonist Effective? It's really fun to take an already good sequence, tweak it, and get something even better!
A Holiday-Themed Shakespearean Sonnet Now we're going to create our own holiday-themed Shakespearean Sonnet. To add complexity (and help our students get started!), we'll write from the point of view of a specific holiday decoration, tradition, or character.
How Do We Make On-Level Writers Into Advanced Writers? I knew how to help my below-level writers become on-level. But how the heck do you make the next step?
I Compared Characters, Yet Stayed At “Remember” I set up an Analyze question, but never actually asked it! All of these questions are at the "remember" level.
Tweaks To A Character Study A teacher sent me a sequence of questions about the story My Father’s Dragon. Based on what you’ve read so far, what is one word you could use to describe Elmer? What from the story made you choose this word? Think of other books you’ve read. What character from another story you know is similar […]
How I’d Change this Question from my Textbook Here are a dozen ways to transform a not-so-critical-thinking question from one of my district's textbooks.
Building Confidence in Speaking Skills When preparing your students for standardized tests, those little standards labeled Speaking And Listening can easily slip by the wayside. And yet, is there any skill more important in landing a job, surviving social engagements, or being a successful leader than confident oral language skills? Teach your students to analyze great speeches to become better public speakers themselves.
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.
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 […]
Creating Better Research Questions Once students have a topic they'd like to research, how do we help them form more interesting questions?
