Here’s a task that I dug off of an old laptop:
Describe a character or situation that ⏳ changed over time. Give examples from the story to prove it.
Yeah. There’s a lot of work to be done here!
Revise for Clarity
First, the question is just poorly written. It’s a rough draft. I’ll revise it for clarity:
Wordy: Describe a character or situation that changed over time. Give examples from the story to prove it.
Clearer: Describe how a character ⏳ changed over time.
Make It About Something
Ok. That’s clearer. But, boy is this question suffering from Vagueness Disease. It’s not connected to any actual content. Let’s re-write the question to fit a particular character in a particular story. Let’s imagine that we’re discussing the first Harry Potter book.
Vague: Describe how a character ⏳ changed over time.
Specific: Describe how Harry Potter changed in this story.
Raise The Thinking
Ok, now we have a question about an actual character. But it’s BOB – Bottom of Bloom’s. It asks for mere comprehension. 36 students will give me the same answer, “Harry gained confidence during the story. Here are three reasons why…”
It’s a fine starting point, but let’s aim higher. How about:
👓⏳ How did Hermione’s view of Harry change throughout the story?
Now this is getting interesting. This also opens the door to ask about other people:
👓⏳ How did Hermione’s view of Harry change throughout the story?
👓⏳ How did Snape’s opinion of Harry change?
Build A Sequence
Switch it out for whatever character you find most interesting. Now I can build this into a sequence. I always want to ask sequences of questions, not one-offs.
- How did Hermione’s view of Harry change throughout the story?
- How did Snape’s opinion of Harry change?
- Write a scene in which Hermione and Snape talk about the changes they’ve noticed in Harry. One character must convince the other to join their point of view.
Now, these are questions that I’m interested to read the responses to. And they naturally differentiate. I’m going to see a wide spread in responses because I’ve raised the ceiling enough to allow for differentiation.
Compare our new sequence of questions to the original, “Describe a character or situation that ⏳ changed over time. Give examples from the story to prove it.”