Here’s a question I saw on several worksheets, from reading and social studies.
Place the following events in the correct order.
And then there’s a list of events from a plot or from a period in history. Students put the events in order. The end.
So, obviously, this is as low-level as you can get. You can tell because your most brilliant students will all give you the exact same answers. But it’s also a one-off, which is the true crime. It’s fine to ask a Remember-level question if you’re using it to set up thinking. But there were no follow up questions on this worksheet. The next task was about matching vocabulary words with definitions.
Worst of all, it’s just boring — for the students and the teacher.
So, let’s aim higher.
A Synthesis Question
Rather than just restate the plot in order, let’s speculate about the effects of changing the sequence of events.
Imagine that Event Y happened before Event X. How would that have changed things?
“Change it and explain the effects” is my favorite shortcut for getting to the Synthesize level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
But let’s get specific…
A Specific Story
If we’re reading something even as basic as The Cat in the Hat, I can still set the stage for students to think.
Imagine that Mom came home while they were cleaning up instead of after the Cat left.
And then, I make a sequence (and remember, I only give students the next part once they’ve done the previous part to my satisfaction):
- How is this version of The Cat in the Hat better? How is it worse?
- How would this have changed the moral of the story?
- Write the ending to this new version of the story.
Do you see how much room there is here for your students to self-differentiate? Your most creative minds will come up with delightfully different ideas. And if it works for the darn Cat In The Hat, imagine how it would work for a story you actually read!
This is the power of aiming high and creating sequences.