Change, Then Explain!
My favorite way to reach “synthesize” – ask students to make a change and then explain the effects of that change.
Going Beyond “Identify a Story’s Problem”
My students were stuck telling me a story’s problem and solution. Let’s get thinking!
Matching Flowers and Pollinators
How to add a couple of Analyze-level tasks to this Synthesize activity.
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.
Upgrading A Research Report
So many “research reports” are really just “regurgitation re-writes.” Here’s one way to take a research report to a much more interesting level.
Create A Civilization: The River
Most humans want to live near fresh water, which means that most civilizations settled near a river! Let’s add a river to your students’ civilizations.
Graphic Organizers Are Not Final Products
Ending with a Venn Diagram is like comparing two vacation spots… but never actually going on the vacation!
From “Summarize” to “Synthesize”
Even what seems like a low-level “summarize” task can become beautifully high-level when we climb Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Don’t Jump Straight to “Create”!
When we jump from “this kid likes board games” straight to “I’ll have them create a new board game”, we leave out important steps in the creative process and set kids up for disappointment (and end up with a lot of unfinished projects). Here’s how to scaffold a truly creative task.
Remix the Song “Help!”
Students took the classic song, Help!, and rewrote it to be about their collective summers.