Evaluating Characters on a Graph

A Christmas Carol – Study Guide Ideas

Take your students through Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol this holiday season and expose them to a classic while exploring the Universal Theme of Change. And, hey, since this story’s in the public domain, you can print out a PDF or link to the text at Project Gutenburg. A Christmas Carol Summary Dickens has organized […]

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 […]

A Depth and Complexity ELA Worksheet with Problems

Here’s a Depth and Complexity worksheet I used to use with my students: I look at it now and shudder. I was making so many mistakes here. Let’s just zoom out and imagine that I asked the same questions at a book club with fellow adults. Me: What is this story’s main theme? Him: Oh, […]

Think Like A Philosopher

Up near the top of Bloom’s taxonomy is “evaluating.” A great use of this level of thinking is to evaluate a character’s ethical choice. But we can go deeper! Let’s ask students to evaluate characters’ actions based on another character’s point of view. To add another layer, we’ll teach kids about philosophers and use their points of view as well.