From “Summarize” to “Synthesize” Even what seems like a low-level "summarize" task can become beautifully high-level when we climb Bloom's Taxonomy.
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, […]
A Remix Library A list of stories inspired by older stories to teach your students about the history of reusing ideas.
What Did You (Not) Do During Summer Break? Ask your students to write about their summer breaks, but remix their activities into a new genre or setting. Perhaps they vacationed at Hogwarts, Mordor, or Tatooine? Not interested in a writing assignment?
Exploring Palindromes in ELA and Math Palindromes are one of those fun ideas that some gifted kids just latch onto. We'll check out palindromic words, phrases, and even numbers in this article.
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.
All About Character Archetypes Another example of "structure that increases creativity" is character archetypes. An archetype, according to Wikipedia, is "an original model of a person, ideal example, or a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated." Let's use an inductive lesson to teach our students about these literary tools.
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.
