Here are two questions from a worksheet I once used:
- What are the different perspectives about Veteran’s Day?
- Why is it important to recognize Veteran’s Day?
These are begging for a re-write:
The Problems
The first question just asks for a list. A student could write “parents and kids” or “me and my dog” because that’s really all I asked for. Do I want them to define the perspectives? Contrast them? I need to make it clear what level of thinking I want here.
Then, the second question doesn’t build on the first question. It goes in a whole new direction, never referencing the different perspectives.
This is why it’s so important to answer your own questions or, as I call it, test your soup. I didn’t start finding these kinds of problems until I started filling out my own worksheets before serving them up to students.
So, in terms of Bloom’s Taxonomy, students start at the Remember level (list perspectives about a holiday) and then go to maybe Evaluate (why is this holiday important).
Now, I always want to reach Analyze, because I think it helps bridge the gap between the lower and higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. And that means comparing and contrasting.
What I Did
So, first, I’d actually give students two perspectives which I purposefully picked. It could be veterans and non-veterans. Or it could be veterans from different wars (perhaps World War II and Vietnam?). Regardless, I’m going to_give students the perspectives I want them to use so that I can build my sequence on these different points of view.
- Part 1: How is Veterans’ Day a positive experience for veterans? How can it be a negative experience?
- Part 2: How do you, as a non-veteran, see Veterans’ Day differently than veterans?
- Part 3: Why is it important for both groups to celebrate Veteran’s Day?
- Possible Final Product: Design a poster that makes your argument from Part 3.
Do you see the difference in thinking this sequence will prompt? Yes, we ask a similar question about importance in the end, but the scaffolds we’ve built will help students to reach a much higher level of thinking in the end.
And notice that the final product, in this case a poster, isn’t the main point of the sequence. It’s just a method for showing off students’ thinking.