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A Foreign Perspective

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In his landmark 1973 book, The Coming of Post-industrial Society, the sociologist Daniel Bell heralded the United States' transition from a labor-intensive economy that produced goods to a knowledge-based one geared toward providing services. No longer could success be achieved through manual, assembly-line work; it would require advanced skills and creativity. At least since then, American politicians and pundits have regularly stressed that education holds the key to the country's future. Everyone seems to agree that good schools are prerequisites for broad economic prosperity, individual social mobility, and a healthy civil society in which informed voters engage in the public issues of the day.

Although no one disputes the value of education, how the country should improve it is fiercely contested. Every few years, along comes a new idea to save American schools, be it enforcing standards, opening charter schools, providing vouchers for private education, or paying teachers based on their performance. Most recently, two federal programs have sought to remake the U.S. education system: No Child Left Behind, a 2001 law that sought to use standards and accountability to push all students to proficiency by 2014, and Race to the Top, an Obama administration initiative that has tried to incentivize change by offering competitive grants to states pursuing reform agendas. All this activity has generated progress in some areas, but it has not led to widespread improvement. U.S. schools still languish in the middle of international rankings, behind the schools of such countries as Estonia and Slovenia. And half a century after the end of official segregation, huge gaps continue to divide students by race and class, with the average black 12th grader scoring in reading at a level equivalent to the average white eighth grader on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the most trusted long-term yardstick of U.S. school performance.

The United States needs a more thoroughgoing and systematic approach to educational improvement. To see what such an effort might look like, consider that any professional field consists

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Since the end of the industrial age, Americans have worried about improving their education system. But the country has never been able to make much progress. Other nations do it better, and the United States must learn from their examples if it hopes to catch up.

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Science teachers have a passion for science - the intrigue, the connection to everyday life, and its reliance on evidence. The love of the content drives science teachers to share the beauty of science with students, and not many are willing to forgo content in place of reading for reading's sake. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which promote discipline-specific literacy, are prompting some questions from the science-teacher community: "Why teach literacy in the science classroom?" "Won't that take time away from science content?"

However, the beauty of discipline-specific literacy is that science teachers do not have to sacrifice scientific practices; in fact, science and literacy blend together beautifully and in ways that support scientific practices. In the age of the NGSS as well as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), discipline-specific literacy is not just suggested, it's required if a teacher is to meet the demands of current standards.

Here are 3 ways the NGSS support scientific thinking:

Science isn't science without reporting results. Scientists as well as engineers rely on the results of previous studies to drive their research or planning. A big component of NGSS is implementing scientific and engineering practices. Literacy is a part of those practices. Think about a career scientist - not the stereotypical wild-haired, serious character who dons a white lab coat and glasses, holding fizzy test tubes. Think about a real scientist - a scholarly individual who actually spends a great deal of his or her time reading the works of other scientists and writing about their own in order to add to the knowledge base. Real-life scientists spend a lot of time reading and writing, and their writing has specific formats and purposes.

The focus on inquiry-based lessons remains strong in the era of NGSS. Incorporating discipline-specific literacy isn't anything new to science teachers. Students have always written lab reports following an investigation, and science textbooks are filled with the information needed to build content knowledge. What is new with NGSS and CCSS is that they are even more specific concerning the purpose and function of reading and writing in the science discipline. Instead of just following "cookbook" directions that have been previously outlined, students engage in true inquiry in which they conduct the investigation themselves.

Since scientists and engineers routinely base their investigations and proposals on the works of peers, researching for background knowledge is imperative. Designing and executing investigations requires background knowledge, and students may be seen reading and researching prior to such activities. The same is true for engineering practices. Engineers solve problems, and in order to propose a solution to a problem, reading and research is also required. The formats in which students write are also discipline-specific. The generic, humdrum lab report can be transformed into a formal report that follows the same format as scientific publications, from magazine articles to peer-reviewed journals (but on the student's level, of course). Students engaged in engineering practices may write design proposals, just like career engineers. A sacrifice of science? I think not!
3 more ways to promote literacy in science classrooms:

Create literacy-rich projects that require active reading and responding to scientific texts.

Iterate that making inferences, developing procedures, analyzing data, drawing conclusions, and justifying results in writing is scientific literacy in action.

Use scientific texts as the anchor for rich discussions, debates, or Socratic seminars.

Watch Shelia's students analyze a scientific journal: Shelia D. Banks is an instructional coach and school support specialist in public schools in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana.

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Science teachers have a passion for science - the intrigue, the connection to everyday life, and its reliance on evidence. The love of the content drives science teachers to share the beauty of science with students, and not many are willing to forgo content in place of reading for reading's sake.

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ERIC - Looking Inside the Classroom: Science Teaching in the United States, Science Educator, 2004

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In this paper, the authors contend that professional development often focuses on, and advocates, a particular instructional strategy, such as the use of hands-on instruction. In the lessons observed in the

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T. Wagner - Education Week, 200

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by Terry Heick

Rigor is a fundamental piece of any learning experience.

It is also among the most troublesome due to its subjectivity. What does it mean? What are its characteristics? Rigorous for whom? And more importantly, how can you use to promote understanding?

Barbara Blackburn, author of "Rigor is not a 4-Letter Word," shared 5 "myths" concerning rigor, and they are indicative of the common misconceptions: that difficult, dry, academic, sink-or-swim learning is inherently rigorous.
Myth #1: Lots of Homework is a Sign of Rigor
Myth #2: Rigor Means Doing More
Myth #3: Rigor is Not For Everyone
Myth #4: Providing Support Means Lessening Rigor
Myth #5: Resources Do Not Equal Rigor Why Rigor Matters
Rigor matters because it imposes cognitive load on students, forcing them to confront misconceptions, reconsider positions, separate the implicit from the explicit, and other critical thinking practices that distinguish shaky familiarity from true understanding.

As such, it's different for every student. If students can't consistently negotiate rigorous tasks, either understanding or thinking habits should be more closely examined. But if work is beyond their Zone of Proximal Development, students are only being setup for disengagement, frustration, and ultimately failure.
10 Strategies To Add Rigor To Any Lesson, Unit, or Assessment 1. Necessitate a transfer of understanding
Several common classroom tasks are inherently rigorous, including reading idea-dense literature, taking notes, and using the writing process itself, but these are rarely engaging, and don't always fit with a given academic standard or task. But the following 10 strategies can be used to add rigor to almost anything.
2. Require students to synthesize multiple sources
By definition, transfer requires a student to apply knowledge in new and unfamiliar situations, an inherently rigorous process. If you can encourage self-initiated transfer (unprompted or coached), all the better.
3. Design tasks with multiple steps that build cognitively
In rigorous tasks, learners will often need to synthesize data, positions, or theories from multiple sources or perspectives. Whether these are literary perspectives, scientific viewpoints, religious ideas, mathematical theories, or any other fundamentally subjective content, when learners have to analyze, internalize, and reconcile multiple perspectives to create a new position or perspective, rigor is a safe bet.

Not all tasks that require multiple steps are inherently rigorous ( fill out the worksheet, turn it in, read the book, answer the questions, talk to your partner about your answers and turn them in is neither a unique or rigorous approach to learning).
4. Use divergent perspectives
If the tasks build (somewhat parallel to Bloom's Taxonomy), rigor is more likely. In this approach, a student might define "conflict," analyze cause-effect of a specific conflict, research the sources of said conflict, then design some kind of short-term solution to one critical cause of said conflict. This approach starts simple, becomes more complex, and is likely to challenge any student no matter how "proficient" their understanding.
5. Use divergent media forms
Use authors, philosophers, artists, content experts, or other thinkers who make authentic cases of their own that offer contrasting perspectives. Not only does this encourage argument analysis, credibility, etc., but also models how elusive and illusory "truth is," a rigorous idea of its own.
6. Break away from content-area convention
Rather than two (or more) texts, require students to analyze a conversation, a poem, and a tweet; a YouTube video, an encyclopedia resource, and an interview with an expert. The more (seemingly) awkward and divergent, the more learners are challenged to develop new strategies to find solutions.
7. Require design thinking (often in project-based learning)
Use literature to frame math. Use science to promote political discussions. Extract the philosophy from cartoons. Find poetry in the stars. Use Google Earth to make sociological observations. These approaches force students to revise schema for new situations, a key characteristics of rigor.
8. Require long-term observation or analysis
Build design thinking into rubrics or scoring criteria, supply exemplars, or model their use, but whatever you do, be sure that elements of design thinking, creativity, and the "tinker culture" aren't just "encouraged" but required for the student to find success.
9. Study nuance
Another potential use of project-based learning or learning simulations, when students are required to observe long-term, cognitive actions such as identifying patterns, cause-effect analysis, and problem-solution thinking are natural by-products.
10. Require students to take and defend positions
Nuance is often overlooked, and offers a world of rigor due to the unique thinking habits it requires.
Rigor is Always Accessible
This can be done first in small groups, then socialized to larger groups (hopefully outside the classroom). A "position" requires a kind of cognitive ownership that is not only indirectly engaging, but also intellectually stimulating and even emotionally demanding, requiring students to think "Why?" as much as "What?," "When?," and "Where?"

As Strong, Silver, and Perini explain in "Teaching What Matters," rigor is a "quality of content, not a measure of the quantity of the content we cover." Certain content areas may be more inherently rigorous than others (Astrophysics comes to mind), but rigor can be added to anything.

Watch an episode of Spongebob, have students reconcile Patrick's presumptions about friendship with Whitman's ideas on the rugged individual, ask students to study the nuance of Spongebob's body language and speech patterns over the course of several episode to reveal patterns, then require them to socialize their thinking in small groups to present a new theory on interpersonal relationships from America's inception to today. You've used #s 2, 4, 5, and 10.
Image attribution North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and flickr user woodleywonderworks
The above is a purposefully absurd idea, but the premise is clear: Rigor is always accessible.

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by Terry Heick Rigor is a fundamental piece of any learning experience. It is also among the most troublesome due to its subjectivity. What does it mean? What are its characteristics? Rigorous for whom? And more importantly, how can you use to promote understanding?

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Rigor is one of the most discussed topics in education today, especially given the emphasis on meeting the challenging Common Core State Standards. But there is much debate over what rigor is and is not.

Let's look at five myths of rigor that will be familiar to many middle grades educators, then at a concrete definition of the actual meaning.

Myth One: Lots of homework is a sign of rigor.

For many people the best indicator of rigor is homework. Some teachers pride themselves on the amount of homework they expect from their students, and there are parents who judge teachers by homework quantity.

Realistically, all homework is not equally useful. Some of it is just busywork, assigned by teachers because principals or parents expect it. For some students, doing more homework than necessary leads to burnout. When that occurs, students are less likely to complete homework and may become discouraged about any kind of learning activity, in or out of school. In the Common Core, you'll notice the focus is on depth, not coverage, which extends to homework.

Myth Two: Rigor means doing more.

"Doing more" often means doing more low-level activities, frequent repetitions of things that students have already learned or can learn with little investment of time. Such narrow and rigid approaches to learning do not define a rigorous classroom.

Students learn in many different ways. Just as instruction must vary to meet the individual needs of students, so must homework. Rigorous and challenging learning experiences will vary with the student. Their design will vary, as will their duration. Ultimately, it is the quality of the assignment that makes a difference in terms of rigor.

Again you'll notice throughout the Common Core State Standards that the focus is on high-quality, in-depth assignments, rather than simply assigning more problems.

Myth Three: Rigor is not for everyone.

Some teachers think the only way to assure success for everyone is to lower standards and lessen rigor. This may mask a hidden belief that some students can't really learn at high levels.

You may have heard of the Pygmalion Effect-students live up to or down to our expectations of them. It's true. Each student can complete rigorous work at high levels, whether they are advanced or a student with special needs. As I said in Myth Two, "rigorous" is different for different learners.

The Common Core standards reinforce this notion when they speak of preparing each student, not just some students, for college and careers. I know from my own experience as a teacher of struggling students who came reading far below their grade level that any teacher can be rigorous, and any student can reach higher levels with the right support.

Myth Four: Providing support means lessening rigor.

In America, we believe in rugged individualism. We are to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and do things on our own. Working in teams or accepting help is often seen as a sign of weakness. Supporting students so that they can learn at high levels is central to the definition of rigor. As teachers design lessons for the Common Core that move students toward college and career-ready work, they must provide scaffolding to support them as they learn. The Core calls on teachers as well as students to respond to higher expectations.

Myth Five: Resources equal rigor.

Recently, I've heard a common refrain. "If we buy this program, or textbook, or technology, then we would be rigorous." This is particularly true with resources claiming to match the Common Core.

Some of these resources are much better than others, so the old saying "Buyer Beware" is particularly pertinent. The right resources can certainly help increase the rigor in your classroom. However, raising the level of rigor for your students is not dependent on the resources you have.

Think about the resources you have now. How can you use them more effectively? Do you use a textbook that includes true-false tests? Often, they are not rigorous because students can guess the answer. However, add one step for more rigor. Ask students to rewrite all false answers into true statements, requiring students to demonstrate true understanding.

It's not the resources; it's how you use them that makes a difference.

True Rigor

Despite its reputation, the word rigor does not have to be a negative in your classroom.

True instructional rigor is "creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels, each student is supported so he or she can learn at high levels, and each student demonstrates learning at high levels (Blackburn, 2012)."

Notice we are talking about four distinct aspects of the classroom: environment, expectations, support, and demonstration of learning.

* An environment that supports rigor focuses on risk-taking, since working at higher levels requires that students take a risk. How do we do this? By reinforcing progress, effort, and grit, or persistence.

* Next, having high expectations means increasing wait time, using positive encouragement to coach students to continue with their work rather than shutting down, and insisting that students provide high quality responses to higher-order questions.

* Support must balance these high expectations, since learning to learn at higher levels requires assistance while moving there. This can include modeling, use of graphic organizers, or chunking information.

* Finally, students must demonstrate learning at high levels. This includes providing work that is quality, rather than just completed at a minimum level. Teachers should provide rubrics and other tools to help students understand what "good" looks like.

A Final Note

Moving beyond the myths of rigor to incorporate true instructional rigor in the classroom is critical, especially in light of the Common Core State Standards. The standards are rigorous, yet we must match the rigor of those standards with our instruction. Having a thorough understanding of rigor allows us to match the standards with appropriately rigorous instruction and assessment.
Barbara Blackburn is a best-selling author of 14 books, including Rigor is NOT a Four-Letter Word. A nationally recognized expert in the areas of rigor and motivation, she collaborates with schools and districts for professional development. Barbara can be reached through her website or her blog. She's on Twitter @BarbBlackburn.

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Five Myths about Rigor and the Common Core

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Rigor is one of the most discussed topics in education today, especially given the emphasis on meeting the challenging Common Core State Standards. But there is much debate over what rigor is and is not. Let's look at five myths of rigor that will be familiar to many middle grades educators, then at a concrete definition of the actual meaning.

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by Susan M. Brookhart

Constructing an assessment always involves these basic principles:

Specify clearly and exactly what it is you want to assess.

Design tasks or test items that require students to demonstrate this knowledge or skill.

Decide what you will take as evidence of the degree to which students have shown this knowledge or skill.

This general three-part process applies to all assessment, including assessment of higher-order thinking. Assessing higher-order thinking almost always involves three additional principles:

Present something for students to think about, usually in the form of introductory text, visuals, scenarios, resource material, or problems of some sort.

Use novel material-material that is new to the student, not covered in class and thus subject to recall.

Distinguish between level of difficulty (easy versus hard) and level of thinking (lower-order thinking or recall versus higher-order thinking), and control for each separately.

The first part of this chapter briefly describes the general principles that apply to all assessment, because without those, assessment of anything, including higher-order thinking, fails. The second section expands on the three principles for assessing higher-order thinking. A third section deals with interpreting student responses when assessing higher-order thinking. Whether you are interpreting work for formative feedback and student improvement or scoring work for grading, you should look for qualities in the work that are signs of appropriate thinking.

Basic Assessment Principles

Begin by specifying clearly and exactly the kind of thinking, about what content, you wish to see evidence for. Check each learning goal you intend to assess to make sure that it specifies the relevant content clearly, and that it specifies what type of performance or task the student will be able to do with this content. If these are less than crystal clear, you have some clarifying to do.

This is more important than some teachers realize. It may seem like fussing with wording. After all, what's the difference between "the student understands what slope is" and "the student can solve multistep problems that involve identifying and calculating slope"? It's not just that one is wordier than the other. The second one specifies what students are able to do, specifically, that is both the target for learning and the way you will organize your assessment evidence.

If your target is just a topic, and you share it with students in a statement like "This week we're going to study slope," you are operating with the first kind of goal ("the student understands what slope is"). Arguably, one assessment method would be for you to ask students at the end of the week, "Do you understand slope now?" And, of course, they would all say, "Yes, we do."

Even with a less cynical approach, suppose you were going to give an end-of-week assessment to see what students knew about slope. What would you put on it? How would you know whether to write test items or performance tasks? One teacher might put together a test with 20 questions asking students to calculate slope using the point-slope formula. Another teacher might ask students to come up with their own problem situation in which finding the slope of a line is a major part of the solution, write it up as a small project, and include a class demonstration. These divergent approaches would probably result in different appraisals of students' achievement. Which teacher has evidence that the goal was met? As you have figured out by now, I hope, the point here is that you can't tell, because the target wasn't specified clearly enough.

Even with the better, clearer target-"The student can solve multistep problems that involve identifying and calculating slope"-you still have a target that's clear to only the teacher. Students are the ones who have to aim their thinking and their work toward the target. Before studying slope, most students would not know what a "multistep problem that involves identifying and calculating slope" looks like. To really have a clear target, you need to describe the nature of the achievement clearly for students, so they can aim for it.

In this case you might start with some examples of the kinds of problems that require knowing the rate of increase or decrease of some value with respect to the range of some other value. For example, suppose some physicians wanted to know whether and at what rate the expected life span for U.S. residents has changed since 1900. What data would they need? What would the math look like? Show students a few examples and ask them to come up with other scenarios of the same type until everyone is clear what kinds of thinking they should be able to do once they learn about slope.

Design performance tasks or test items that require students to use the targeted thinking and content knowledge. The next step is making sure the assessment really does call forth from students the desired knowledge and thinking skills. This requires that individual items and tasks tap intended learning, and that together as a set, the items or tasks on the assessment represent the whole domain of desired knowledge and thinking skills in a reasonable way.

Here's a simple example of an assessment item that does not tap intended learning. A teacher's unit on poetry stated the goal that students would be able to interpret poems. Her assessment consisted of a section of questions matching poems with their authors, a section requiring the identification of rhyme and meter schemes in selected excerpts from poems, and a section asking students to write an original poem. She saw these sections, rightly, as respectively tapping the new Bloom's taxonomy levels of Remember, Apply, and Create in the content area (poetry), and thought her assessment was a good one that included higher-order thinking. It is true that higher-order thinking was required. However, if you think about it, none of these items or tasks directly tapped students' ability to interpret poems.

Plan the balance of content and thinking with an assessment blueprint. Some sort of planning tool is needed to ensure that a set of assessment items or tasks represents the breadth and depth of knowledge and skills intended in your learning target or targets. The most common tool for this is an assessment blueprint. An assessment blueprint is simply a plan that indicates the balance of content knowledge and thinking skills covered by a set of assessment items or tasks. A blueprint allows your assessment to achieve the desired emphasis and balance among aspects of content and among levels of thinking. Figure 1.1 shows a blueprint for a high school history assessment on the English colonies.

The first column (Content Outline) lists the major topics the assessment will cover. The outline can be as simple or as detailed as you need to describe the content domain for your learning goals. The column headings across the top list the classifications in the Cognitive domain of the revised Bloom's taxonomy. Any other taxonomy of thinking (see Chapter 2) could be used as well.

The cells in the blueprint can list the specific learning targets and the points allocated for each, as this one does, or simply indicate the number of points allocated, depending on how comprehensive the content outline is. You can also use simpler blueprints, for example, a content-by-cognitive-level matrix without the learning targets listed. The points you select for each cell should reflect your learning target and your instruction. The example in Figure 1.1 shows a 100-point assessment to make the math easy. Each time you do your own blueprint, use the intended total points for that test as the basis for figuring percents; it will not often be exactly 100 points.

Notice that the blueprint allows you to fully describe the composition and emphasis of the assessment as a whole, so you can interpret it accurately. You can also use the blueprint to identify places where you need to add material. It is not necessary for every cell to be filled. The important thing is that the cells that are filled reflect your learning goals. Note also that the points in each cell do not all have to be 1-point test items. For example, the 10 points in the cell for explaining how colonial governments helped prepare citizens for participation in the American Revolution could be one 10-point essay, two 5-point essays, or any combination that totals 10 points.

A blueprint helps ensure that your assessment and the information about student achievement that comes from it have the emphasis you intend. In the assessment diagrammed in Figure 1.1, three topic areas (government, relations with Native Americans, and trade-25 percent each) have more weight than colonial life (15 percent) or the founding of the colonies (10 percent). You can plan what percentage of each topic area is allocated to what level of thinking from the points and percentages within the rows. And the total at the bottom tells you the distribution of kinds of thinking across the whole assessment. In Figure 1.1, 55 percent of the assessment is allocated to recall and comprehension (25 percent plus 30 percent), and 45 percent is allocated to higher-order thinking (20 percent plus 25 percent). If the emphases don't come out the way you intend, it's a lot easier to change the values in the cells at the planning stage than to rewrite parts of the assessment later on.

In fact, blueprints simplify the task of writing an assessment. The blueprint tells you exactly what kind of tasks and items you need. You might, when seeing a blueprint like this, decide that you would rather remove one of the higher-order thinking objectives and use a project, paper, or other performance assessment for that portion of your learning goals for the unit, and a test to cover the rest of the learning goals. So, for example, you might split off the question in the cell Analyze/Native Americans and assign a paper or project for that. You could recalculate the test emphases to reflect an 80-point test, and combine the project score with the test score for the final grade for the unit.

Plan the balance of content and thinking for units. You can also use this blueprint approach for planning sets of assessments (in a unit, for example). Cross all the content for a unit with cognitive levels, then use the cells to plan how all the assessments fit together. Information about student knowledge, skills, and thinking from both tests and performance assessments can then be balanced across the unit.

Plan the balance of content and thinking for rubrics. And while we're on the subject of balance, use blueprint-style thinking to examine any rubrics you use. Decide on the balance of points you want for each criterion, taking into account the cognitive level required for each, and make sure the whole that they create does indeed reflect your intentions for teaching, learning, and assessing. For example, a common rubric format for written projects in many subjects assesses content completeness and accuracy, organization/communication, and writing conventions. If each criterion is weighted equally, only one-third of the project's score reflects content. Evaluating such a rubric for balance might lead you to decide to weight the content criterion double. Or it might lead you to decide there was too much emphasis on facts and not enough on interpretation, and you might change the criteria to content completeness and accuracy, soundness of thesis and reasoning, and writing conventions. You might then weight the first two criteria double, leading to a score that reflects 80 percent content (40 percent each for factual information and for higher-order thinking) and 20 percent writing.

Decide what you will take as evidence that the student has, in fact, exhibited this kind of thinking about the appropriate content. After students have responded to your assessments, then what? You need a plan for interpreting their work as evidence of the specific learning you intended. If your assessment was formative (that is, it was for learning, not for grading), then you need to know how to interpret student responses and give feedback. The criteria you use as the basis for giving students feedback should reflect that clear learning target and vision of good work that you shared with the students.

If your assessment was summative (for grading), then you need to design a scheme to score student responses in such a way that the scores reflect degrees of achievement in a meaningful way. We will return to the matter of interpreting or scoring student work after we present some specific principles for assessing higher-order thinking. It will be easier to describe how to interpret or score work once we have more completely described how to prepare the tasks that will elicit that work.

Principles for Assessing Higher-Order Thinking

Put yourself in the position of a student attempting to answer a test question or do a performance assessment task. Asking "How would I (the student) have to think to answer this question or do this task?" should help you figure out what thinking skills are required for an assessment task. Asking "What would I (the student) have to think about to answer the question or do the task?" should help you figure out what content knowledge is required for an assessment task. As for any assessment, both should match the knowledge and skills the assessment is intended to tap. This book focuses on the first question, the question about student thinking, but it is worth mentioning that both are important and must be considered together in assessment design.

As the beginning of this chapter foreshadowed, using three principles when you write assessment items or tasks will help ensure you assess higher-order thinking: (1) use introductory material or allow access to resource material, (2) use novel material, and (3) attend separately to cognitive complexity and difficulty. In the next sections, each of these principles is discussed in more detail.

Use introductory material. Using introductory material-or allowing students to use resource materials-gives students something to think about. For example, student performance on a test question about Moby Dick that does not allow students to refer to the book might say more about whether students can recall details from Moby Dick than how they can think about them.

You can use introductory material with many different types of test items and performance assessment tasks. Context-dependent multiple-choice item sets, sometimes called interpretive exercises, offer introductory material and then one or several multiple-choice items based on the material. Constructed-response (essay) questions with introductory material are similar, except students must write their own answers to the questions. Performance assessments -including various kinds of papers and projects-require students to make or do something more extended than answering a test question, and can assess higher-order thinking, especially if they ask students to support their choices or thesis, explain their reasoning, or show their work. In this book, we will look at examples of each of these three assessment types.

Use novel material. Novel material means material students have not worked with already as part of classroom instruction. Using novel material means students have to actually think, not merely recall material covered in class. For example, a seemingly higher-order-thinking essay question about how Herman Melville used the white whale as a symbol is merely recall if there was a class discussion on the question "What does the white whale symbolize in Moby Dick?" From the students' perspective, that essay question becomes "Summarize what we said in class last Thursday."

This principle about novel material can cause problems for classroom teachers in regard to higher-order thinking. For one thing, it means that only the teacher knows for sure whether a test item or performance assessment actually assesses higher-order thinking; others outside a given classroom can't tell by looking whether or not an assessment requires higher-order thinking for that particular class. For another, the novelty of the material on an assessment is under a teacher's control. Teachers who "teach to a test" by familiarizing the students with test material intended to be novel change the nature of the assessment. However well-intentioned, this practice short-circuits the intent of the instrument to assess higher-order thinking.

Teachers should avoid short-circuiting assessments that are meant to evaluate higher-order thinking by using in class the same questions or ideas that they know will be on the test. Sometimes this is easier said than done, as students may complain-and rightly so-"we never did that before." Students should be assessed on things they were taught to do, not surprised on a test or performance assessment with tasks for which they have had no practice.

The solution is that teachers who want their students to be able to demonstrate higher-order thinking should teach it. Dealing with novel ideas, solving problems, and thinking critically should not be something students feel they "never did before." By the time students arrive at a summative assessment that requires higher-order thinking in the content domain of instruction, they should have had many opportunities to learn and practice, using other novel material.

The following example includes three versions of an assessment requiring students to discuss a theme, in this case the moral of an Aesop's fable: a multiple-choice question, an essay question, and a performance assessment. All three of the examples present the students with introductory, novel material. In this case, the material is Aesop's fable "Androcles and the Lion." Giving students the fable text means they don't need to have memorized the tale. Using a new (to them) fable means students can't rely on a previous discussion or summary of the tale. To save space, the fable is printed only once here, but it would be printed above whichever format of the question you used. You would not use all three formats, just the one most appropriate for your assessment purposes.

Androcles and the Lion

A. The emperor ordered Androcles to be thrown to the lion.

*B. The lion did not eat Androcles.

C. Androcles pulled the thorn from the lion's paw.

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________
CRITERIA for feedback or rubrics:

Appropriateness of details from the fable.

Soundness of reasoning and clarity of explanation.

CRITERIA for feedback or rubrics:

Appropriateness of original fable to Androcles theme.

Soundness of reasoning and clarity of explanation.

Appropriateness of evidence from both fables.

Writing conventions.

All three of the tasks call for analytical thinking. All three require that students be able to reason about the fable "Androcles and the Lion" and its theme. Note, however, that the formats are not completely interchangeable. They each tap a slightly different set of skills in addition to the core analysis required for explaining the theme. The multiple-choice version requires students to identify, from choices given, the portion of the fable's plot where a noble soul expresses gratitude. The short-essay version requires students to identify, from the text of the fable, the portion of the fable's plot where a noble soul expresses gratitude and to explain their reasoning. It also, therefore, requires students to exercise some writing skills. The performance assessment version requires students to do everything the short-essay version does, plus display synthetic or creative thinking to write an analogous fable and explain that thinking. It also requires more writing than the short-essay version. Which of these you would use would depend on exactly what you wanted to assess.

Manage cognitive complexity and difficulty separately. Realizing that level of difficulty (easy versus hard) and level of thinking (recall versus higher-order thinking) are two different qualities allows you to use higher-order-thinking questions and tasks with all learners. The misconception that recall is "easy" and higher-order thinking is "hard" leads to bad results. The two most insidious ones, in my opinion, are shortchanging young students and shortchanging low achievers of any age by offering them only recall and drill assignments because they are not "ready" to do higher-order thinking. In either case, while these students are waiting for you to think they are ready, they will also learn that school is boring. They may misbehave, they may drop out, and they certainly will not learn to think well.

Thinking tasks can be easy or hard, and so can recall-level tasks. If you doubt that, consider the examples on the following page.

Strategies for Giving Feedback or Scoring Tasks That Assess Higher-Order Thinking

There are two ways to interpret student responses to items or tasks: one is to comment on the work, and the other is to score it. For either, it is important to apply criteria about the quality of thinking exhibited in the work. In this book, I suggest criteria with each essay or performance assessment example (as shown in the example using the fable). The criteria could be either the foundation for feedback or the basis for rubrics, or both, depending on how you used the assessment. The important points are that the criteria match your learning targets, and that progress against those criteria means learning.

Formative Assessment of Higher-Order Thinking

Observing and discussing student reasoning directly can be a powerful way to assess higher-order thinking. Give students an assessment, and use it formatively. Have conversations with students about their reasoning, or give substantive written feedback. The conversations and feedback should be based on your learning target and criteria. Exactly what sort of thinking were you trying to assess? How should students interpret the quality of their thinking? What are some ways they might extend or deepen that thinking?

Here is an example from Robert Danka, an 8th grade mathematics teacher at Kittanning High School in Pennsylvania. He was familiarizing his students with the kind of open-ended math problems that might appear on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) test. Open-ended PSSA items include phrases such as "Show all your work" and "Explain why you did each step." To do that, students need first to be able to identify the problem. Here is one part of one of the sample problems Robert used:

The major purpose for using this problem was to help students appraise the quality of their explanations of math problem solving, a formative purpose. These skills would help the students on the PSSA, a summative evaluation. This teacher gave students feedback on both the correctness of their answers and the quality of their explanations. Although it may seem automatic to the adults reading this chapter, identifying the problem as a distance problem that requires division is an important skill. Figure 1.2 (p. 32) reproduces two student responses for just the portion of the Gomez family trip problem I have used as an example.

Figure 1.2. Examples of Student Work and Explanation of a Math Problem

For Student 1, Robert wrote, "This is correct, but explain why you divided-what are you looking to find? Your explanations are improving-continue to include every piece of data in the explanation." He noticed and named one strategy (including data in the explanation) that the student had been working on and did successfully, and gave one suggestion for improvement (provide a rationale for using division). Both of these would help the student make his reasoning more transparent to a reader, and would also help with the state test expectations for explaining reasoning.

For Student 2, this teacher wrote next to d = rt, "Good use of the formula!" Next to the explanation, he wrote, "62 __ ? Please refer to the question to display the units! Good explanation!" He noticed and named one specific strength (use of the formula) and made one general comment (good explanation) and one specific suggestion for improvement (specify the units).

Summative Assessment of Higher-Order Thinking

A complex task requiring higher-order thinking can be subverted by a scoring scheme that gives points only for facts reported. Conversely, scoring the quality of students' reasoning on even some very simple tasks can assess higher-order thinking. For summative assessment of how students use higher-order thinking-for graded tests and projects-a scoring scheme must be devised in such a way that higher-order thinking is required to score well. This requirement means that soundness of thinking must figure into the criteria from which the rubric is developed. Some rubrics or other scoring schemes attend mainly to surface features or merely count the number of correct facts in students' responses. Such scoring schemes can turn an exercise in which students did use higher-order thinking into a score that doesn't reflect the thinking students did.

Multiple-choice questions. Multiple-choice questions would typically be scored with one point for a correct choice and no points for an incorrect choice. The "thinking" is encoded into the choosing. It is worth reminding readers here that for the resulting scores to mean that students use higher-order thinking, the questions have to be designed so that higher-order thinking really is required to answer.

Constructed-response and essay questions. For constructed-response answers to questions designed to tap various kinds of reasoning, often a rubric with a short scale will work well. Start with the criterion, the type of thinking you intended to assess. For example, ask, "Does the student weigh evidence before making decisions?" or "Does the student appropriately evaluate the credibility of the source?" Then use a scale that gives partial credit depending on the quality of the reasoning.

Here is an example of a task a 9th grade science teacher used to assess students' understanding of chemical and physical changes. Students had observed demonstrations about ice floating in water, then melting, and had drawn diagrams of the molecular structure. Then pairs of students were given cards with everyday events. They were to sort them into two categories, physical change and chemical change, and explain why they put them where they did. Then they were to write what they learned about physical and chemical changes. In passing, I should mention that this exercise sparked some interesting student higher-order thinking beyond simple categorizing and inductive thinking. For example, one student asked, "Is cutting the grass a chemical or physical change, if you consider that the cut part of the grass dies?"

Here is an example of a scoring scheme that could be used with the 9th grade science class example of physical and chemical changes. I list the scale as 2-1-0, but it could also be 3-2-1, or 6-4-2, or whatever weight is appropriate for other scores with which it needs to be combined for a particular test or grade composite score.

2 = Completely and clearly-Response gives clear evidence of reasoning from the examples.

1 = Partially-Response is accurate, but reasoning from examples isn't clear or is only partial.

0 = No-Response does not demonstrate reasonable conclusions from the examples.

Figure 1.3 presents responses from three student pairs. Each pair was to list one example of physical and chemical change, and then a paragraph explaining what the pair had learned about physical and chemical changes from their inductive reasoning. Response 1 would score a 0. The teacher did not think that these students showed any evidence of having figured out differences between physical and chemical changes based on sorting the examples. Response 2 would score a 1. These students' statement about molecular structure is correct, but as the teacher commented, "Textbook response, got the concept but I'm not sure if it was from discussion." The response does not allow us to conclude much about their reasoning. Response 3 would score a 2. In fact, the teacher was very pleased and said, "Not an answer I would expect, but they really got the concept."

Figure 1.3. Examples of Student Explanations of Physical and Chemical Changes

Performance assessments. Analytical rubrics are often used for scoring performance assessments, papers, and projects. The quality of thinking demonstrated in the work should figure prominently in at least one of the rubric trait scales. Teachers can write their own rubrics or select a rubric for use from among the many that are available on the Internet or in curriculum materials. An Internet search for "problem-solving rubrics," for example, yielded 85,500 results.

Before you use rubrics from the Internet or from curriculum materials, make sure they are good ones that will help you communicate clearly. Select or write rubrics that are appropriate to the content and thinking skills you intend to assess and that are appropriate for the educational development of your students. Select or write rubrics that describe qualities (e.g., "reasoning is logical and thoughtful") rather than count things (e.g., "includes at least three reasons").

It is particularly helpful if the same general thinking or problem-solving scheme can be applied to several different assignments. Students will learn that the thinking and reasoning qualities described in the rubric are their "learning target" and can practice generalizing them across the different assignments. The general rubrics can be used with each assignment or can be made specific for that assignment.

Excellent examples of problem-solving rubrics for different purposes exist, and many are available on the Internet. The NWREL Mathematics Problem-Solving Scoring Guide uses five criteria: conceptual understanding, strategies and reasoning, computation and execution, communication, and insights. Descriptions of performance on each criterion are given for each of four levels: emerging, developing, proficient, and exemplary. The rubric is available online at http://educationnorthwest.org/content/851.

In 2008, the School-wide Rubrics Committee at Lincoln High School in Lincoln, Rhode Island, developed several rubrics for teachers and students to use, many based on the National English Language Arts Standards. One of the schoolwide rubrics is for problem solving and is available online at www.lincolnps.org/HighSchool/rubrics/Problem-Solving%20School-wide%20Rubric.pdf. This rubric describes five criteria: understands the problem and devises a plan, implements a plan, reflects on results, creates an organizing structure, and demonstrates understanding of written language conventions (when appropriate). The rubric describes performance at each of four levels: exceeds standard, meets standard, nearly meets standard, and below standard.

The state of Kentucky uses an open-ended scoring guide for problem solving in mathematics, social studies, science, and arts and humanities. This general rubric can be defined in more specific detail for specific assessment items or tasks. The advantage of using such a general framework as the basis for scoring all kinds of work is that students will come to see the types of thinking expected in the general rubric as learning goals. They will be able to practice and work consistently toward these achievement outcomes. This rubric is holistic, which means it uses one overall scale to rate performance. It is called the Kentucky General Scoring Guide and is contained in each booklet ofreleased items for the Kentucky Core Content Test (KCCT). Links to released items at different content areas and grade levels are available online at www.education.ky.gov/KDE/Administrative+Resources/Testing+and+Reporting+/District+Support/Link+to+Released+Items/2009+KCCT+Released+Items.htm.

There are many more excellent rubrics to be found. Use your own evaluative skills when searching for and appraising rubrics for your own purposes. When you select rubrics to use or to adapt for use, make sure that the criteria (scoring categories or traits) match the problem-solving or other skills you value and teach. Make sure that the descriptions of quality in each of the levels ( proficient, and so on) match the expectations for performance in your school and district. Use rubrics not only for scoring summative assessments, but for instruction and formative assessment as well. For example, students can use rubrics to analyze the qualities of work samples, to self-assess drafts of their own work, to discuss work with peers, or to form the basis of student-teacher conferences.

Summing Up

This chapter discussed three general assessment principles, three specific principles for assessing higher-order thinking, and ways to interpret or score the student work from such assessments. I think of the material in this chapter as "the basics." These principles underlie all the assessment examples in the rest of the book. As you read the more specific examples in the following chapters, think of how each one works out these basic principles in the specific instance. This should help you develop the skills to apply these principles when you write your own assessments.

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General Principles for Assessing Higher-Order Thinking

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by Susan M. Brookhart Constructing an assessment always involves these basic principles: Specify clearly and exactly what it is you want to assess. Design tasks or test items that require students to demonstrate this knowledge or skill. Decide what you will take as evidence of the degree to which students have shown this knowledge or skill.

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What Student Surveys Tell Us About the State of Education in the United States

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Interactive Map: How Much Are Students Learning? by Ulrich Boser and Lindsay Rosenthal

You might think that the nation's teenagers are drowning in schoolwork. Images of sullen students buried in textbooks often grace the covers of popular parenting magazines, while well-heeled suburban teenagers often complain they have to work the hours of a corporate lawyer in order to finish their school projects and homework assignments. But when we recently examined a federal survey of students in elementary and high schools around the country, we found the opposite: Many students are not being challenged in school.

Consider, for instance, that 37 percent of fourth-graders say that their math work is too easy. More than a third of high-school seniors report that they hardly ever write about what they read in class. In a competitive global economy where the mastery of science is increasingly crucial, 72 percent of eighth-grade science students say they aren't being taught engineering and technology, according to our analysis of a federal database.

These findings come at a key time. Researchers increasingly believe that student surveys can provide important insights into a teacher's effectiveness. When the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released findings from their Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project in 2011, they found that student feedback was a far better predictor of a teacher's performance than more traditional indicators of success such as whether a teacher had a master's degree or not. The mounting evidence on the importance of student surveys has also been shaping policy at the state and local level, and a variety of groups dedicated to the improvement of teaching-such as the New Teacher Project, a nonprofit that works to advance policies and practices to ensure effective teaching in every classroom-have been incorporating student surveys into their teacher evaluation and certification process.

Given the significance of this growing body of research on student surveys, we examined one of the richest sources of national student survey data and conducted an analysis of the background surveys of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Known as the Nation's Report Card, these assessments are administered every two years by the National Center for Education Statistics. We looked specifically at the student questionnaire, which collects student-reported information on demographics and classroom experiences.

In reviewing the data, we examined a number of issues that track current debates over education policy and research. Given the recent debates over academic standards, for instance, we looked closely at issues of rigor and student expectations. Do students think that they are being challenged enough? Do teachers engage students in deep learning opportunities? We were also interested in issues of access since students provide an important, classroom-eye view of the resources that are available to them. Are all students being given access to the types of learning opportunities that they need to be prepared for college and the modern workplace? Are those resources distributed fairly among different types of students and schools?

Among our findings:

Many schools are not challenging students and large percentages of students report that their school work is "too easy."If students are going to succeed in the competitive global economy, they need to be exposed to a rigorous curriculum. But many students believe their class work is too easy. Twenty-nine percent of eighth-grade math students nationwide, for instance, report that their math work is often or always too easy. In some states like Virginia, nearly a third of middle-school students reported their work was often or always too easy.This finding was consistent across grades and subject matter. We found that 51 percent of eighth-grade civics students and 57 percent of eighth-grade history students report that their work is often or always too easy. Elementary school students also revealed that they aren't being challenged by their math work-37 percent of fourth-grade students reported that their math work is often or always too easy. Among high school students, 21 percent of 12th-graders said their math work was often or always too easy, while 56 percent and 55 percent respectively found their civics and history work often or always too easy.

Many students are not engaged in rigorous learning activities. Almost a third of eighth-grade students report reading fewer than five pages a day either in school or for homework. That's below what many experts recommend for students in middle school. Eighth-grade students across the country also report that they rarely write lengthy answers to reading questions on tests: approximately one-third of students write long answers on reading tests twice per year or less.

The issues are similar at the high school-level. Thirty-nine percent of 12th-grade students, for example, say that they hardly ever or only once or twice a month write about what they read in class. Nearly one-third said they write long answers on reading tests two times a year or less. Moreover, almost one-third of 12th-grade reading students say they rarely identify main themes of a passage when reading, and almost 20 percent said they never or hardly ever summarize a passage.

Note, however, that these data do not measure the quality of the work that students are performing in class-and the quality of the work can make a big difference in how much students learn. Students might be reading just a few, very rigorous pages every day, for instance. But given overall low reading scores-and the degree to which more reading promotes more learning-we believe these results should be cause for alarm.

Students don't have access to key science and technology learning opportunities. For today's students, being prepared for college and the modern workforce means having access to high-quality curriculum materials in critical subject areas like math and science. But our analysis found that most teenagers say their schools don't provide important learning opportunities in science and technology. For instance, 72 percent of eighth-grade science students say they are not taught about engineering and technology.

Too many students don't understand their teacher's questions and report that they are not learning during class.Nationwide, less than two-thirds of middle school math students report that they feel like they are always or almost always learning in math class. Similarly, just under 50 percent of 12th-grade math students said they feel like they are always or almost always learning in their math class.Students also often report difficulty understanding their teacher's questions. Twenty-five percent of middle school math students report that they sometimes or hardly ever understand what their teacher asks. Thirty-six percent of12th-graders report they sometimes or hardly ever clearly understand what their math teacher asks.

Students from disadvantaged background are less likely to have access to more rigorous learning opportunities.All students, regardless of their family background, should have access to a high-quality education. But our analysis of student feedback found that students from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to have the same access to robust learning opportunities. Consider, for instance, that 74 percent of higher- income fourth-grade students report that they often or always understand what their science teacher is saying, compared with just 56 percent of lower-income fourth-grade students. Among middle school students, 80 percent of higher-income middle-school students report often or always understanding what teachers ask in math class. In contrast, just 70 percent of low-income students report often or always understanding their math teacher. Meanwhile, 66 percent of higher-income 12th-graders reported they often or always understand what their math teacher is saying, compared with 60 percent of low-income students.There are also racial gaps in some areas. For instance, in the fourth-grade 73 percent of white students and 72 percent of Asian and Pacific Islander students said that they clearly understand what their science teacher talks about. In contrast, only 56 percent of black; 54 percent of Hispanic; and 58 percent of Native American and Alaska Native students say they do. In middle school, 83 percent of Asian and Pacific Islander students and 79 percent of white eighth-grade students report that they clearly understand what their math teacher is saying. But only 67 percent of black students; 70 percent of Hispanic students; 69 percent of Native American and Alaska Native students report understanding their teacher.To be clear, there were not opportunity gaps in every area that we looked at. We examined disaggregated data for all of the relevant background questions and we reported the results only for questions in which there were significant gaps.

Our analysis leads us to the following recommendations:
Ulrich Boser is a Senior Fellow and Lindsay Rosenthal is the Special Assistant for Domestic Policy at the Center for American Progress.

Policymakers must continue to push for higher, more challenging standards. To ensure that all students are ready for the global economy, we need to expect more of our students and schools they attend. The Common Core standards are one way to help states and districts make progress on this issue, but far more needs to be done.

Students need more rigorous learning opportunities, and our nation needs to figure out ways to provide all students with the education that they deserve. Too many students report not being engaged in class. They don't understand what their teachers are teaching them and they feel like they are not learning. Our nation can-and should-do more.

Researchers and educators should continue to develop student surveys. We hope this report launches additional research into the use of student surveys. Researchers such as Ronald Ferguson, senior lecturer in education and public policy and director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University, have made significant advances which we describe below. But we need to know much more about these tools, and what they reveal about the student experience.

Over the past few years, many states have engaged in promising reforms that address the issues we raise in this report. But our findings suggest we need to do far more to improve the learning experience for all students. We hope that the interactive state-by-state maps available on our website-together with the findings and recommendations in the following pages-will inspire engagement with students' perspectives in the search to find new and better ways to provide students with the knowledge and skills that they need to succeed.

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Interactive Map: How Much Are Students Learning? by Ulrich Boser and Lindsay Rosenthal

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Do Schools Challenge Our Students? - Center for American Progress

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What Student Surveys Tell Us About the State of Education in the United States Posted on Download this report (pdf) Download the introduction and summary (pdf) Read this report in your browser (Scribd) Download selected student survey results for states (pdf) Download complete survey data used in report (.xls) Interactive Map: How Much Are Students Learning?

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Possible Roadblocks: Using HOT strategies

focused on challenging talented students but

still implementing those strategies with special education students.

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Bibliography of Potential Resources

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Differentiating Lessons for Advanced Students

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Differentiating Lessons for Advanced Students

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Carol Ann Tomlinson

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Just as teachers are role models for learning, they are role models for asking questions. Think of it this way: Statements, with that period right at the end, bring thinking to a halt. Questions, on the other hand, are what initiate and encourage thinking. And that, of course, is what teachers are trying to do. Imagine how many questions a teacher asks in just one day. The questions range from "How are you?" or "How was the [game, performance, play, concert, etc.] last night?" to "Who will show us how to balance this equation?" At times you may hear questions related to safety and the learning environment, such as "Does everyone understand why you should wash your hands with soap?" or "Do you need to move so you can see the SMART Board?" Typically you hear lots of questions about the application of concepts that are the focus for the day's lessons, such as "What is the answer to the third problem?" or "What is the next word in the sequence?" or "Which strategy did you use to solve the problem?" Occasionally there are reflective or philosophical questions, such as "What did you learn today that surprised you, or that interested you, that you want to talk about when you get home?" While these reflective questions are the least often asked, they may be the most important. What kind of questions do you frequently ask? As we have said, it is the asking of questions-of ourselves or as teachers-that initiates thinking.

Lower-Level and Higher-Level Questions

There are various ways of classifying questions, with the two most frequent ones being in terms of Bloom's Taxonomy and convergent vs. divergent thinking. As we have seen, Bloom's taxonomy has six distinct levels and questions can be made to match those levels quite easily. For example,

1. Knowledge What is the word for a group of turkeys?

2. Comprehension What is the purpose of a topic sentence when writing paragraphs?

3. Application Using our numerical code rather than the alphabet, how would you write your name?

4. Analysis In what ways are deciduous trees and evergreen trees similar?

5. Synthesis How could you use a barometer to determine the height of a building?

6. Evaluation What do you think will be the most significant change that individuals can make to offset global warming? Why?

Perhaps more frequently, questions are classified into two subdivisions of the taxonomy: higher-level thinking questions (often referred to as higher-order thinking, or H.O.T.) and lower-level thinking questions. Lower-level questions are those on the Knowledge level. Using this system it is easier because identifying questions for specific higher-level questions, especially application ﻿and analysis, sometimes depends on the context or setting. For example: What is the nutritional value of mushrooms? For this question the level of thinking depends on the situation. Did the lesson on nutrition state the value of mushrooms? If so, the answer would require recall. If the lesson provided a list of foods but did not include mushrooms, the thinking involved in answering the question would be more challenging. The following are other examples of low-level vs. high-level thinking questions:
Lower Level

What is photosynthesis?

What is the name of the main character in the story?

9 × 3 = → ?

Higher Level

How is the formula for photosynthesis similar to respiration?

Who is your favorite character in the story? Why?

How could you simplify this equation: 9x + 27y = 153?

Convergent and Divergent Questions

Convergent questions are those that typically have one correct answer, while divergent questions, also called open-ended questions, are used to encourage many answers and generate greater participation of students. Besides engaging students' memory through recall, convergent questions can be used to guide students' observations, perhaps during a demonstration. Divergent questions, on the other hand, stimulate student creative or critical thinking, encouraging students to be better observers. These open-ended questions can guide students as they discover information for themselves, analyze data, make inferences, and identify relationships.
Examples of convergent questions:

How many of the pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower survived the first winter?

Which is smaller, 5/16 or 3/8?

Is saltwater denser than freshwater?

Examples of divergent questions:

What do you predict will happen?

What can you tell me about shadows?

What sacrifices made by settlers traveling west by covered wagon would be most difficult for you?

What different strategies can we use to solve the problem?

Questions That Can Derail Thinking

Teachers typically ask many more convergent questions, perhaps 85 percent of the time. A more balanced frequency will assure a value of and an emphasis on student thinking. By making audio recordings of your instructional time, you can determine the level and frequency of your question types.

Sometime teachers ask the wrong question. For instance, does a teacher really want to know the answer to the question, "Who can tell me how a sundial works?" "My dad" is probably not the answer the teacher was expecting. What about questions such as this: "Using information in the data table, can you construct a graph comparing the size of the fish in the aquarium?" There is great potential for H.O.T., but the way the question is worded, the answer is either "yes" or "no." In each case, however, there is potentially a good question that will encourage students to think.

Another category of questions that you will want to use sparingly includes those that employ guesswork. For example,

1. Only women have femoral arteries. True or False

2. The average number of times college students change majors is ______. a) 2 times b) 4 times c) 6 times

There is a 50 percent chance of guessing the answer to the first question, and a 1:3 chance with the second one. If the students' answers are correct, you are not going to know whether they guessed correctly or actually knew the information.

Of course, there are times when you, as teacher, must ask convergent questions. They are an appropriate part of the curriculum as long as you avoid limiting your questions to convergent ones.

Why? Questions

The "why?" question is a wonderful question. It can stimulate one's thinking, encourage creative and critical thinking, and open up a whole realm of possibilities. It is a question that typifies four-year-olds but engages adolescents and adults as well. Why does thunder have to be so loud? Why don't I understand algebra? Such questions are asking for explanations (inferences) from someone perceived to be wise or at least more experienced, or are pointing the way toward further understanding.

But why stop there? Yes, four-year-olds ask those questions that sometimes challenge adults to really think about something. Rather than stifling the questions of young people as they continue their efforts to understand the world around them, teachers can capitalize on their natural curiosity. By encouraging children to develop their own questions related to the topic of study, the search for answers becomes a great motivation for meaningful learning. Ultimately, the teacher can help the student to change those "why?" questions into questions more suited for investigation: What causes thunder to be so loud? What is preventing me from understanding algebra?

Taking their cue from the teacher, students place value on the types of questions asked most frequently or those questions that dominate the lessons. If you want to value a particular level of thinking, consider the amount of time or frequency with which you encourage that level.

From The Educator's Field Guide. Copyright © 2011 by Corwin. All Rights Reserved.

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Just as teachers are role models for learning, they are role models for asking questions. Think of it this way: Statements, with that period right at the end, bring thinking to a halt. Questions, on the other hand, are what initiate and encourage thinking. And that, of course, is what teachers are trying to do.

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Higher Order Questions: A Path to Deeper Learning

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Watch a lesson that helps students build higher order thinking skills. This middle school literature lesson brings in the ELA Common Core by teaching how to analyze how a section in text fits into the overall theme and to cite textual evidence to support analysis of text.

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By John Jensen, Ph.D.

U.S. education has long been concerned about "higher order" skills missing from students' learning.

I suggest here that we obtain such skills for students if we 1) teach them how to stimulate and challenge each other, 2) arrange time and structure for them to do so, and 3) provide them solid competence with a body of knowledge to engage with.

The need has drawn recurring attention. Recently, in " Studies: Educators Lagging in Teaching Higher-Order Skills " (Edweek Online, February 10, 2012), Anthony Rebora explores current findings from the Gates Foundation's Measures of Effective Teaching study and others. Observers deployed to classrooms to watch what teachers do, how they deliver higher-order skills, using five instruments to score them on forty-eight dimensions. The study concluded that practices such as analysis, problem-solving, investigation, participation in developing reasoning and meaning, questioning, discussing, engaging students, and relevance are short-changed.

Scrutiny, in other words, was on teachers in front of a class, guiding it by activities deemed "higher order." Reviewing the MET page by page, however, I found little reference to what students do, as though to say that we find the key behaviors isolated among teachers' actions. If teachers just engage students properly, the latter's higher mental processes presumably vault into action, and students eventually engage in such thinking. The central actor is the teacher. Students are accounted for mainly as they register "achievement gains" from test scores.

This teacher-centric focus has problems.

For one, it's functionally impossible for a teacher to elicit a response from every child about every issue. Instead, the students most vocal and quick of mind do most of the thinking, leaving a significant number of the class (often even a majority) unchallenged. Watching it happen to another does not automatically challenge oneself. Since teacher time is limited, we almost guarantee results at the student level falling into a curve. At worst it will resemble a hockey-stick lying on its back, with the students who occupy its handle continuing their sojourn there.

We remedy this factor by considering what it takes for students to elicit higher order thinking in each other. If the teacher doesn't have time to jar such thinking out of every student, why not enlist more help? Why not divide the workload? We change the question from "How do you teach higher order skills?" to "How can students elicit higher order thinking from each other?" If we can figure out how, many more of them can aid the effort, and they are motivated to do so because their interaction meets social needs.

The basic behaviors are not mysterious. Students can quickly improve their ability to question each other, conduct a discussion, explore relevance, and engage each other's participation. Refined skills in group dynamics have been around for at least a half century. They can be taught directly, and once beginning to use them, students can readily develop them further. We can put them in students' toolbox and allocate class time for all to use them simultaneously.

Once grasping what comprises a challenging question, students can draw out each others' ideas endlessly. If group discussion is the activity, again simple guidelines all can learn quickly can channel it in groups of two, three, or four. They can practice and acquire skills of eliciting, questioning, discussing, and reasoning to process any subject the teacher introduces, and do the same with including everyone, developing relevance, and so on. The key shift is obtaining the straightest route to what students do rather than an indirect focus on what teachers do.

It's important to note, however, that even such skills in themselves do not comprise higher-order thinking. If anyone knows a successful scientist or businessman who credits his/her success to higher order thinking learned in high school, I would appreciate learning their identity. A question is a form of speech and no more higher order than learning school hallway rules. "No running in the hallway" and "Carry a hallway pass with you" are empty abstractions until applied by these students to thisschool and this hallway. A guideline is irrelevant until one fills it with content. Guidelines for discussing, including everyone, uncovering relevance, and reasoning have zero usefulness until they are about something. They are like rules in a Drivers Manual that disappear from our thinking until we are behind the wheel applying them in the moment.

If I ask a student, "Please reason for me," he looks at me blankly and answers, "Reason how about what?" Operation today is confined to content today. If I present a list of assertions and ask students to sort them by whether they are a principle theme or a subordinate idea, the task works only if the assertions hold such a relationship. If I ask for a sequence of reasoning, students are halted if the content before them contains no such sequence. Knowledge mastered as a field exposes grappling points of comparable dimension where new angles of thought can build on what is known. Consider parallels:

In games a basketball coach exhibits the best coaching techniques available but his team loses-because his players have poor skills.

A conductor leads an orchestra flawlessly, but it produces a dreadful sound because the musicians don't know the notes.

A movie director employs every skill in directing a new film, but it turns out horribly because the actors don't know their parts.

In schools, an inescapable dependence exists between the skills used and the content they apply to. Imagine the different effect of a teacher's actions in two contexts:

analysis-with no data mastered or much data already mastered

problem-solving-no knowledge mastered or much already mastered

investigation-knowing nothing previously or much previously

reasoning-with much information or little

questioning-about much data or little

discussion-about much knowledge or little

relevance-to a wide spectrum of meaning or a constricted one

We can liken higher order thinking to a circle of children tossing a ball to each other-this one to that, that one to another. The circle may be small with just one ball, but stimulation rises steadily as more children join the circle, and three or four balls move across the circle at the same time.

As ideas connecting from one point of the mind to another, we can regard higher order thinking as the mind tying together ever wider resources within its own stores. Whatever the outer classroom activity, it benefits a student to the degree that it occurs inside his/her own thinking. It's thinking we want of a higher order, not just the actions of a teacher. Our activity must cause a different process in the student's mind. If there is much in the mind already, more elaboration of it is possible. If there is little, then little is possible. We refine and develop only what is there. In exploring, we go beyond where we are now. In reasoning, we begin from the forms of thought in our mind now. If we question or discuss, our jump-off is our present understanding.

I suspect that many teachers reverse this model. They would like to teach new material by involving students by means of higher order skills. They take time to question, elicit discussion, engage participation, and so on. They note that this effort can be a creative time and stimulate student interest and cooperation.

If we probe into the mental processes of each student in the room, on the other hand, we may get a different take on what has occurred. Two-thirds of the students may experience mainly responding to the teacher. To the extent of their cooperativeness, they react to the teacher's initiative. They will board the teacher's train if drawn aboard. A smaller number need to be corralled more assertively, and a few actually think proactively as the teacher hopes. They have the personal confidence not to worry about being right or wrong, but are attracted to the challenge the teacher poses.

For the quick of mind, in other words, while higher order thinking may engage them in the subject, the same direction may easily bypass the immediate needs of the bulk of the class. If the teacher's intent is to include everyone, then the activity needs to be arranged so that the challenge reaches all personally. In practical terms, this is less likely if teachers expect to interact with students one at a time.

A third point involves why people would want to use higher order thinking once they learn how. Assuming you yourself employ these capabilities, where in your life do they emerge?

Aside from resolving practical problems at home or work, I would submit that most such thinking passes through a single channel, the desire to make sense to another person. We probably elicit the most higher-order thinking for students (plus interest, comprehension, and buy-in) if we simply arrange for them to challenge each others' thinking. I suspect that a high student score in sense-making would outperform all the other teacher-technique measures the MET might supply. And this measure in turn would be fed most by high scores on "Enabled students to feel passionately interested in subject." When you feel passionate about a subject, you look instinctively about its direction, meaning, relevance, and significance. You enjoy processing it with others and exploring its angles.

We can probably safely generalize about U.S. education that students don't learn how to challenge each other's thinking, and few teachers even pose the question of how to generate passionate interest. Teachers can learn such skills, however, and their potential application varies with the amount of knowledge students have.

What needs to be in place is that students already know the material competently, at least competently. Without this, the whole "higher order" discussion runs aground. The idea of what constitutes student competence with learning has been so fractured into what is testable that it has departed from common sense. You yourself know you can think in a higher order way about what you know if you can take a walk, bring up an issue solely by the power of your own mind, view it from multiple angles, and as a result of that activity advance your own thought into something you hadn't realized before. And you make such thinking socially (include educationally) relevant when you can explain it to someone else in response to their question, and do so as well six months from now as today.

To obtain that outcome, we need to observe sequence, what comes ahead of what, and be wary of promises to jump steps. It fights the tide to ask teachers to teach (or students to learn) higher order skills in the absence of sheer competence with the subject matter the skills must apply to. Basketball players must practice the fundamentals, musicians their music, and actors their lines. If we don't pour the foundation of the building, we should not promise students the penthouse.
The first book of John Jensen's three-book Practice Makes Permanent series was issued February 22 by Rowman and Littlefield, titled Teaching so Students Work Harder and Enjoy It: Practice Makes Permanent. Readers interested in previewing the second book due out in mid-summer, titled Changing Attitudes and Behavior: Practice Makes Permanent, can contact him at [email protected]

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John Jensen: Three Steps to Higher-Order Thinking

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By John Jensen, Ph.D. U.S. education has long been concerned about "higher order" skills missing from students' learning. I suggest here that we obtain such skills for students if we 1) teach them how to stimulate and challenge each other, 2) arrange time and structure for them to do so, and 3) provide them solid competence with a body of knowledge to engage with.

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Media Literacy | Viewpoint

5 Tech-Friendly Lessons to Encourage Higher-Order Thinking

Infographics made with Web tools like Piktochart can help improve media literacy skills.

Experts maintain that regular opportunities to engage in activities requiring use of higher order thinking skills can significantly improve student achievement as measured on standardized tests. My own experience as a classroom teacher, site administrator, and professional development provider supports this assertion.

To this end, mobile apps and Web 2.0 tools can facilitate implementation of activities requiring students to use skills at the top three levels of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy--analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Here are five examples of activities that target these levels of the taxonomy and can be used with students across grade levels in a variety of content areas. Teachers of very young children can implement these ideas as whole class projects.
1. One Minute, One Take
Video production helps students of all ages use higher order thinking skills as they create a digital media product. In the One Minute, One Take activity, students work in small groups to identify a topic that can be explained or summarized in one minute. This might be a plot summary of a book or movie, but can also be an explanation of a concept.

Once the topic is identified, students analyze the information, evaluate what critical information must be incorporated into the one minute summary or explanation, and create a video in one take. It's okay to pause the recording while shooting, but aside from adding a title and closing credits, that should be all the editing that's done. 60 Second Recap is an example.
2. Listen up!
Creating podcasts is an easy, effective way to help students of all ages strengthen their higher order thinking skills and become better speakers and listeners in the process. All you need is a device that can record audio and a way to listen to what's been recorded. There are free audio recording apps for all mobile devices and Audacity is a free audio recording and editing program to download on a PC or Mac. An external microphone is handy, but it's possible to get by without one.

Podcast topics are virtually limitless and recordings can be comprised of words, sound effects, and music. Encourage students to work in pairs or small groups. Limit early projects to about three minutes. Once they choose (or are assigned) a topic, they need to work collaboratively to conduct research, write a script, record the podcast, and review their final product. As with the video, keep editing to a minimum. If students rehearse before recording they should be able to get through a short script with very few mistakes.
3. Look Carefully
Infographics--graphical representations designed to show complex information quickly and clearly--are useful because they reduce lots of content into a readily understood format. However, it's easy to use charts, graphs, and other visual representations to distort facts. The ability to differentiate between accurate and inaccurate infographics is a critical media literacy skill.

One way to become a more discerning reader of infographics is to create one. In this activity, students work in small groups to create an infographic on a topic of their choice. In the process they: research a topic to gather data they verify as being accurate and current; decide how the data will be presented (e.g., charts, timelines, Venn diagrams, etc.); choose design elements (color scheme, font type, size, and style); and, assemble the infographic using Excel and MS Word, or a Web 2.0 tool like Piktochart.

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5 Tech-Friendly Lessons to Encourage Higher-Order Thinking -- THE Journal

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Mobile apps and Web 2.0 tools can facilitate implementation of activities requiring students to use skills at the top three levels of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy--analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Here are five examples of activities that target these levels of the taxonomy and can be used with students across grade levels in a variety of content areas.

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Higher order thinking (HOT) is thinking on a level that is higher than memorizing facts or telling something back to someone exactly the way it was told to you. HOT takes thinking to higher levels than restating the facts and requires students to do something with the facts - understand them, infer from them, connect them to other facts and concepts, categorize them, manipulate them, put them together in new or novel ways, and apply them as we seek new solutions to new problems.

Answer children's questions in a way that promotes HOT

Parents and teachers can do a lot to encourage higher order thinking, even when they are answering children's questions. According to Robert Sternberg, answers to children's questions can be categorized into seven levels, from low to high, in terms of encouraging higher levels of thinking. While we wouldn't want to answer every question on level seven, we wouldn't want to answer every question on levels one and two, either. Here are the different levels and examples of each.

Level 1: Reject the question

Example:
"Why do I have to eat my vegetables?"
"Don't ask me any more questions." "Because I said so."

Level 2: Restate or almost restate the question as a response

Example:
"Why do I have to eat my vegetables?"
"Because you have to eat your vegetables."

"Why is that man acting so crazy?"
"Because he's insane."

"Why is it so cold?"
"Because it's 15° outside."

Level 3: Admit ignorance or present information

Example:
"I don't know, but that's a good question."
Or, give a factual answer to the question.

Level 4: Voice encouragement to seek response through authority

Example:
"Let's look that up on the internet."
"Let's look that up in the encyclopedia."
"Who do we know that might know the answer to that?"

Level 5: Encourage brainstorming, or consideration of alternative explanations

Example:
"Why are all the people in Holland so tall?"
"Let's brainstorm some possible answers."
"Maybe it's genetics, or maybe it's diet, or maybe everybody in Holland wears elevator shoes, or..." etc.

When brainstorming, it is important to remember all ideas are put out on the table. Which ones are "keepers" and which ones are tossed in the trashcan is decided later.

Level 6: Encourage consideration of alternative explanations and a means of evaluating them

Example:
"Now how are we going to evaluate the possible answer of genetics? Where would we find that information? Information on diet? The number of elevator shoes sold in Holland?"

Level 7: Encourage consideration of alternative explanations plus a means of evaluating them, and follow-through on evaluations

Example:
"Okay, let's go find the information for a few days - we'll search through the encyclopedia and the Internet, make telephone calls, conduct interviews, and other things. Then we will get back together next week and evaluate our findings."

This method can be equally effective with schoolwork and with everyday matters such as how late an adolescent can stay out on Saturday night or who is getting to go to a concert. For example, polling several families that are randomly or mutually chosen may produce more objective results than either parent or child "skewing" the results by picking persons whose answers will support their way of thinking.

Strategies for enhancing higher order thinking

These following strategies are offered for enhancing higher order thinking skills. This listing should not be seen as exhaustive, but rather as a place to begin.

Take the mystery away

Teach students about higher order thinking and higher order thinking strategies. Help students understand their own higher order thinking strengths and challenges.

Teach the concept of concepts

Explicitly teach the concept of concepts. Concepts in particular content areas should be identified and taught. Teachers should make sure students understand the critical features that define a particular concept and distinguish it from other concepts.

Name key concepts

In any subject area, students should be alerted when a key concept is being introduced. Students may need help and practice in highlighting key concepts. Further, students should be guided to identify which type(s) of concept each one is - concrete, abstract, verbal, nonverbal or process.

Categorize concepts

Students should be guided to identify important concepts and decide which type of concept each one is (concrete, abstract, verbal, nonverbal, or process).

Tell and show

Often students who perform poorly in math have difficulty with nonverbal concepts. When these students have adequate ability to form verbal concepts, particular attention should be given to providing them with verbal explanations of the math problems and procedures. Simply working problems again and again with no verbal explanation of the problem will do little to help these students. Conversely, students who have difficulty with verbal concept formation need multiple examples with relatively less language, which may confuse them. Some students are "tell me" while others are "show me."

Move from concrete to abstract and back

It can be helpful to move from concrete to abstract and back to concrete. When teaching abstract concepts, the use of concrete materials can reinforce learning for both young and old alike. If a person is able to state an abstract concept in terms of everyday practical applications, then that person has gotten the concept.

Teach steps for learning concepts

A multi-step process for teaching and learning concepts may include (a) name the critical (main) features of the concept, (b) name some additional features of the concept, (c) name some false features of the concept, (d) give the best examples or prototypes of the concept (what it is), (e) give some non-examples or non-prototypes (what the concept isn't), and (f) identify other similar or connected concepts.

Go from basic to sophisticated

Teachers should be sure that students have mastered basic concepts before proceeding to more sophisticated concepts. If students have not mastered basic concepts, they may attempt to memorize rather than understand. This can lead to difficulty in content areas such as math and physics. A tenuous grasp of basic concepts can be the reason for misunderstanding and the inability to apply knowledge flexibly.

Expand discussions at home

Parents may include discussions based on concepts in everyday life at home. The subject matter need not relate directly to what she is studying at school. Ideas from reading or issues in local or national news can provide conceptual material (for example, "Do you think a dress code in school is a good idea?").

Connect concepts

Teachers should lead students through the process of connecting one concept to another, and also putting concepts into a hierarchy from small to large. For example, if the concept is "Thanksgiving," a larger concept to which Thanksgiving belongs may be "Holidays," and an even larger (more inclusive) concept could be "Celebrations." By doing this level of thinking, students learn to see how many connections are possible, to connect to what they already know, and to create a web of concepts that helps them gain more clarity and understanding.

Compare the new to the already known. Students should be asked to stop and compare and connect new information to things they already know. For example, if they are about to read a chapter on electricity, they might think about what they already know about electricity. They will then be in a better position to absorb new information on electricity.

Teach inference

Students should be explicitly taught at a young age how to infer or make inferences. Start with "real life" examples. For example, when a teacher or parent tells a child to put on his coat and mittens or to get the umbrella before going outside, the adult may ask the child what that might mean about the weather outside. When students are a little older, a teacher may use bumper stickers or well-known slogans and have the class brainstorm the inferences that can be drawn from them.

Teach Question-Answer Relationships (QARs)

The Question-Answer Relationships (QARs) technique (Raphael 1986) teaches children to label the type of questions being asked and then to use this information to assist them in formulating the answers. Two major categories of question-answer relationships are taught: (1) whether the answer can be found in the text - "In the Book" questions, or (2) whether the reader must rely on his or her own knowledge - "In My Head" questions.

In the book QARs

Right There:
The answer is in the text, usually easy to find; the words used to make up the questions and words used to answer the questions are Right There in the same sentence.

Think and Search (Putting It Together):
The answer is in the story, but the student needs to put together different parts to find it; words for the questions and words for the answers are not found in the same sentences; they come from different parts of the text.

In my head QARs

Author and You:
The answer is not in the story; the student needs to think about what he/she already knows, what the author tells him/her in the text, and how it fits together.

On My Own:
The answer is not in the story; the student can even answer the question without reading the story; the student needs to use his/her own experience.

The QAR technique helps students become more aware of the relationship between textual information and prior knowledge and enable them to make appropriate decisions about which strategies to use as they seek answers to questions. This technique has proven to be especially beneficial for low-achieving students and those with learning differences in the elementary grades (Raphael 1984; Simmonds 1992).

Clarify the difference between understanding and memorizing

When a student is studying, his parents can make sure that he is not just memorizing, but rather attempting to understand the conceptual content of the subject matter. Parents can encourage the student to talk about concepts in his own words. His parents can also play concept games with him. For example, they can list some critical features and let him try to name the concept.

Elaborate and explain

The student should be encouraged to engage in elaboration and explanation of facts and ideas rather than rote repetition. His teachers and parents could have him relate new information to prior experience, make use of analogies and talk about various future applications of what he is learning.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Students should be encouraged to make a visual representation of what they are learning. They should try to associate a simple picture with a single concept.

Make mind movies

When concepts are complex and detailed, such as those that may be found in a classic novel, students should be actively encouraged to picture the action like a "movie" in their minds.

Teach concept mapping and graphic organizers

A specific strategy for teaching concepts is conceptual mapping by drawing diagrams of the concept and its critical features as well as its relationships to other concepts. Graphic organizers may provide a nice beginning framework for conceptual mapping. Students should develop the habit of mapping all the key concepts after completing a passage or chapter. Some students may enjoy using the computer software Inspiration for this task.

Make methods and answers count

To develop problem-solving strategies, teachers should stress both the correct method of accomplishing a task and the correct answer. In this way, students can learn to identify whether they need to select an alternative method if the first method has proven unsuccessful.

Methods matter

To develop problem-solving strategies, teachers should give credit to students for using a step-wise method of accomplishing a task in addition to arriving at the correct answer. Teachers should also teach students different methods for solving a problem and encourage students to consider alternative problem-solving methods if a particular strategy proves unrewarding. It is helpful for teachers and parents to model different problem-solving methods for every day problems that arise from time to time.

Identify the problem

Psychologist Robert Sternberg states that precise problem identification is the first step in problem solving. According t o Sternberg, problem identification consists of (1) knowing a problem when you see a problem and (2) stating the problem in its entirety. Teachers should have students practice problem identification, and let them defend their responses. Using cooperative learning groups for this process will aid the student who is having difficulty with problem identification as he/she will have a heightened opportunity to listen and learn from the discussion of his/her group members.

Encourage questioning

Divergent questions asked by students should not be discounted. When students realize that they can ask about what they want to know without negative reactions from teachers, their creative behavior tends to generalize to other areas. If time will not allow discussion at that time, the teacher can incorporate the use of a "Parking Lot" board where ideas are "parked" on post-it notes until a later time that day or the following day.

Cooperative learning

Many students who exhibit language challenges may benefit from cooperative learning. Cooperative learning provides oral language and listening practice and results in increases in the pragmatic speaking and listening skills of group members. Additionally, the National Reading Panel reported that cooperative learning increases students' reading comprehension and the learning of reading strategies. Cooperative learning requires that teachers carefully plan, structure, monitor, and evaluate for positive interdependence, individual accountability, group processing, face to face interaction, and social skills.

Use collaborative strategic reading

Collaoborative Strategic Reading - CSR (Klinger, Vaughn, Dimino, Schumm & Bryant, 2001) is another way to engage students in reading and at the same time improve oral language skills. CSR is an ideal tactic for increasing reading comprehension of expository text in mixed-level classrooms across disciplines. Using this tactic, students are placed into cooperative learning groups of four to six students of mixed abilities. The students work together to accomplish four main tasks: (1) preview (skim over the material, determine what they know and what they want to learn), (2) identify clicks and clunks (clicks = we get it; clunks = we don't understand this concept, idea or word), (3) get the gist (main idea) and (4) wrap up (summarize important ideas and generate questions (think of questions the teacher might ask on a test). Each student in the group is assigned a role such as the leader/involver/taskmaster, the clunk expert, the gist expert, and the timekeeper/pacer (positive interdependence). Each student should be prepared to report the on the group's conclusions (individual accountability).

Think with analogies, similes, and metaphors

Teach students to use analogies, similes and metaphors to explain a concept. Start by modeling ("I do"), then by doing several as a whole class ("We do") before finally asking the students to try one on their own ("You do"). Model both verbal and nonverbal metaphors.

Reward creative thinking

Most students will benefit from ample opportunity to develop their creative tendencies and divergent thinking skills. They should be rewarded for original, even "out of the box" thinking.

Include analytical, practical, and creative thinking

Teachers should provide lesson plans that include analytical, practical and creative thinking activities. Psychologist Robert Sternberg has developed a framework of higher order thinking called "Successful Intelligence." After analyzing successful adults from many different occupations, Sternberg discovered that successful adults utilize three kinds of higher order thinking: (1) analytical (for example, compare and contrast, evaluate, analyze, critique), (2) practical (for example, show how to use something, demonstrate how in the real world, utilize, apply, implement), and (3) creative (for example, invent, imagine, design, show how, what would happen if). Data show that using all three increases student understanding.

Teach components of the learning process

To build metacognition, students need to become consciously aware of the learning process. This changes students from passive recipients of information to active, productive, creative, generators of information. It is important, then for teachers to talk about and teach the components of the learning process: attention, memory, language, graphomotor, processing and organization, and higher order thinking.

Actively teach metacognition

Actively teach metacognition to facilitate acquisition of skills and knowledge. It is important for students to know how they think and learn. Teach students about what Robert Sternberg calls successful intelligence or mental self-management. Successful intelligence is a great way to explain metacognition.

In his book entitled Successful Intelligence, Sternberg lists six components of successful intelligence:

1. Know your strengths and weaknesses

2. Capitalize on your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses

3. Defy negative expectations

4. Believe in yourself. This is called self-efficacy

5. Seek out role models - people from whom you can learn

6. Seek out an environment where you can make a difference

Use resources

Several resource books by Robert Sternberg are available on higher order thinking. The following books should be helpful and are available at local bookstores or online.

Consider individual evaluation

Many students with higher order thinking challenges benefit from individual evaluation and remediation by highly qualified professionals.

Make students your partners

A teacher should let the student with higher order thinking challenges know that they will work together as partners to achieve increases in the student's skills. With this type of relationship, often the student will bring very practical and effective strategies to the table that the teacher may not have otherwise considered.

Evaluation/Assessment

If consistent use of some of the above strategies does not seem to help a student, it may be worthwhile to consider having a comprehensive neurodevelopmental evaluation conducted by a qualified professional. Problem identification is the first step in problem solution; thus, if the problem is not accurately identified, the solutions that are attempted often will not reap rewards for the student and those working with him.

A comprehensive neurodevelopmental evaluation performed by a licensed psychologist should serve as the roadmap for parents, students and professionals working with the student. It should provide a complete picture of his attention, memory, oral language, organization, graphomotor/handwriting skills and higher order thinking. It should also include an assessment of the student's academic skills (reading, written language and math) and his social and emotional functioning. The evaluation should not only provide an accurate diagnosis but also descriptive information regarding the areas of functioning noted above.

When seeking professional services for an evaluation, it is important to understand what constitutes a good evaluation and also the purpose of the evaluation. Evaluations conducted by public school systems are generally for the purpose of determining whether a student meets criteria for a special education classification. Evaluations conducted by many private professionals are performed for the purpose of determining whether the student meets diagnostic criteria according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association. While both of these types of evaluations are helpful in their own ways, they are generally not sufficient for providing the best roadmap. Therefore, parents should be informed consumers and ask questions about what kind of information they will walk away with after the evaluation has been completed.

The focus of an evaluation should be to address concerns and provide answers to specific questions asked by the parents and the student, and to identify the underlying causes of problems. For example, if the student has problems with reading comprehension, is it because she cannot decode the words, she has insufficient fluency or vocabulary, or she cannot understand discourse because of difficulty with attention or memory? It should also identify the student's strengths as well as challenges and specific strategies for managing these challenges.

A good evaluation should glean information from multiple sources such as interviews, questionnaires, rating scales and standardized tests. Contact CDL for more information about neurodevelopmental evaluations at (504) 840-9786 or learn@cdl.org.

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Higher order thinking (HOT) is thinking on a level that is higher than memorizing facts or telling something back to someone exactly the way it was told to you.

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Jenna Argo

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by Karen Tankersley

The ultimate goal of literacy instruction is for students to be able to process text at the level of evaluation, synthesis, analysis, and interpretation. This level is the final thread in the reading tapestry. Once students have learned to read, we spend most of our time from 3rd grade on trying to help them develop their thinking skills and use them as tools to process their thoughts. As Alvermann and Phelps (1998) tell us, "The curriculum must expand to include information and activities that explicitly support students in learning to think well. The emphasis is less on the mastery of information measured by a recall-based assessment and more on learning how to use one's mind well, to synthesize and analyze skillfully" (p. 69). Put plainly, students will need these higher-order skills to succeed in their lives and careers.

Readers who engage in higher-order thinking go beyond the basic levels of comprehension outlined in Chapter 4. They can analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and interpret the text they are reading at complex levels. They can process text at deep levels, make judgments, and detect shades of meaning. They can make critical interpretations and demonstrate high levels of insight and sophistication in their thinking. They are able to make inferences, draw relevant and insightful conclusions, use their knowledge in new situations, and relate their thinking to other situations and to their own background knowledge. These students fare well on standardized tests and are considered to be advanced. They will indeed be prepared to function as outstanding workers and contributors in a fast-paced workplace where the emphasis is on using information rather than just knowing facts.

Bloom's Taxonomy and Beyond

Although most teachers learned about Bloom's Taxonomy (Bloom, 1956) during their preparation courses, many seldom challenge students beyond the first two levels of cognition: knowledge and comprehension. Because most jobs in the 21st century will require employees to use the four highest levels of thinking-application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation-this is unacceptable in today's instructional programs. We must expect students to operate routinely at the higher levels of thinking.

Bloom's original taxonomy has certainly withstood the test of time, but a newer version has been introduced to reflect more contemporary thinking. Recently a former student of Bloom, Lorin Anderson, and a group of cognitive psychologists published a revised version of Bloom's taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Bloom's original six categories were nouns: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. In the new version, Anderson and colleagues changed the nouns to verbs to reflect thinking as an active process.

Revised Category #1: Knowledge → Remember

In the revised taxonomy, the original "Knowledge" category was changed to "Remember." This category refers to shallow processing: the drawing out of factual answers, recall, and recognition. In reading, this is simply recalling the facts in a text or recalling the sequence of a story. At this level, questions that teachers ask center on the five Ws and seldom require students to advance beyond superficial thinking. We see this level of thinking often reflected in classrooms across the United States. Some verbs that teachers use to demonstrate student knowledge of material include the following: choose, describe, define, identify, label, list, locate, match, memorize, name, omit, recite, recognize, select, and state.

Revised Category #2: Comprehension → Understand

The second category of Bloom's original taxonomy was "Comprehension." In the revised model, it is renamed "Understand." This category reflects the acts of translating, interpreting, and extrapolating. Examples in reading include summarizing text and identifying in-text relationships. Some verbs that teachers use to ask students to demonstrate understanding include the following: classify, defend, demonstrate, distinguish, explain, express, extend, give an example, illustrate, indicate, interrelate, infer, judge, match, paraphrase, represent, restate, rewrite, select, show, summarize, tell, and translate.

Revised Category #3: Application → Apply

The third category, "Application," was changed to "Apply" in the revised taxonomy and is defined as knowing when or why to apply certain skills automatically, as well as having the ability to recognize patterns that can transfer to new or unfamiliar situations. Teachers prompt students to think at the "Apply" level by using the following constructions: "Predict what would happen if . . . ," "Judge the effects of . . .," and "What would happen if . . .?" Verbs that teachers might use to determine whether students are working at this level include the following: apply, choose, dramatize, explain, generalize, judge, organize, paint, prepare, produce, select, show, sketch, solve, and use. When students have not processed information at the application level, they cannot take information learned in one context and translate it to another.

Revised Category #4: Analysis → Analyzing

The "Analysis" category in Bloom's taxonomy was renamed "Analyzing" in the revised version. This level involves breaking information down into parts and different forms, and drawing comparisons between a text and background knowledge data. Classroom questions that address this category include the following: "What is the function of . . .?" "What conclusions can we draw from . . .?" "What is the premise?" and "What inference can you make about . . .?" The following verbs apply to analyzing activities: analyze, categorize, classify, differentiate, distinguish, identify, infer, point out, select, subdivide, and survey. To use the thinking process of analyzing, students must be able to see connections and draw conclusions. We often see questions on state reading proficiency tests that expect students to display thinking at this level.

Revised Category #5: Evaluation → Design

Though Bloom placed "Evaluation" at the highest level of his taxonomy, Anderson and colleagues rank it fifth to reflect their idea that creative thinking (design) is more complex than critical thinking (evaluation). For the Anderson theorists, critical thinking is necessary for the creative process to occur, because it involves accepting or rejecting ideas-a precursor to creating a new design (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). For this reason, evaluation precedes creation in the revised model.

To evaluate information, students need to be able to distinguish essential data from information that is simply interesting. They must be able to identify core themes, form and support opinions, and identify inconsistencies, bias, or lack of coherence or accuracy in a text. They must also be able to use background information, prior knowledge, and other textual sources to assess the validity of the text. For example, when reading a novel, students with strong evaluation skills might compare the works of two authors and offer evidence to support opinions on the author's writing style. Constructions that address the evaluation level include the following: "Do you agree with . . .?" "What is your opinion of . . .?" "How would you prove. . . ?" "How would you rate . . .?" and "How would you prioritize . . .?" The following verbs apply to evaluation activities: appraise, assess, check, compare, conclude, criticize, critique, defend, justify, and support.

Revised Category #6: Synthesis → Create

The fifth level of the original Bloom's Taxonomy was called "Synthesis." In Anderson's revised version, this level is renamed "Create" and is upgraded to level six. Synthesizing text involves linking new information with prior knowledge or with multiple texts to develop a new idea, establish a new way of thinking, or create a new product of some type. An example of synthesis would be rewriting "Little Red Riding Hood" from the perspective of the wolf. Anderson sees the act of "creating" as combining elements into a pattern that had not existed before. Some constructions that assess the process of analysis or creating include the following: "Develop a new way to . . .," "Suggest another way to . . .," "How might you adapt . . .?" and "Can you predict the outcome if . . .?" The following verbs signal the "Create" level of thinking: choose, combine, compose, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, hypothesize, invent, make, make up, originate, organize, plan, produce, and role play. To succeed at this level, students must be able to synthesize their thinking and make predictions based on knowledge.

Focusing Attention on the Higher Levels of Reading

When readers interpret text, they are providing their own ideas about what the content means by applying background knowledge to analyze and synthesize the information. Good readers must interpret both the literal and the implied meaning behind an author's words. The less background knowledge they have on a topic, the more they need to infer meaning by "reading between the lines." Keene and Zimmermann (1997) identified the following seven essential comprehension strategies that skilled readers need to know:

Determining importance

Relating the new to the known

Synthesizing

Inferring

Asking questions

Creating sensory images

Monitoring for meaning

Each of these topics must be taught to students in a deliberate and direct fashion. When students have mastered all seven strategies, they are processing text at the highest levels of literacy. For their part, Moore and colleagues (2003) point to the following reading skills as particularly important:

Connecting knowledge to prior experiences

Previewing and predicting to improve comprehension

Organizing information and applying meaningful frameworks and categories

Being able to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste what is described in print

Self-monitoring of understanding

Critically evaluating text

Forming judgments

Applying the knowledge gained from the text to new situations

Content instruction should strive for depth rather than breadth. To process what they read with insight and a critical eye, students must be able to consider the text as a whole and understand what the author is trying to communicate. Students may demonstrate understanding by explaining the purpose or viewpoint of a text, identifying the theme and critical elements, sharing their opinions on some aspect of the story, or analyzing the personal attributes of a character and interpreting his actions. Students must also be able to create and understand analogies, write about their thoughts and opinions, compare and contrast similar or dissimilar events, and use their creativity to extend and develop concepts. Higher-order thinking skills will allow them to analyze pros and cons and form well-reasoned opinions as adults.

In addition to good technical reading skills, students must have a good grasp of the nuances of language and how words are used. Figurative language can be particularly difficult for students. Petrosky (1980) observes that adults on average use figurative expressions over 500,000 times during a year; they permeate our texts as well as our speech patterns, helping to clarify meaning. Figurative language requires readers to access background knowledge and relate concepts to one another. According to Readence, Baldwin, and Head (1986), there are three reasons that readers may have difficulty interpreting figurative language: they may not recognize that the language is not meant literally, or they may not have enough background knowledge to understand the link between the two compared items. English-language learners are particularly stymied by figurative language, and by idioms in particular. Acting out idioms or illustrating them literally are fun ways to help the class interpret them. Have students construct their own picture books of favorite figurative phrases. Poems are great sources of rich figurative language, as are newspapers and magazines-especially the ads. Ask students to bring some examples to class. Some fun books for learning about figurative language are In a Pickle and Other Funny Idioms (1983) by Marvin Terban and Chocolate Moose for Dinner (1976) and The King Who Rained (1970), both by Fred Gwynne.

At the time this book went to press, the following Web sites were available to help increase student vocabulary and comprehension:

The Wacky World of Words Web site (http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/teachwell/), where teachers can get games, puzzles, and other fun activities for all types of word and phrase learning.

The RhymeZone (http://www.rhyme.lycos.com/), where students can find rhymes, synonyms, and antonyms for any word they type in, as well as resources on Shakespeare, Mother Goose, and famous quotes and documents.

Word Play (http://www.wolinskyweb.net/word.htm), an exhaustive list of Web sites devoted to words of all kinds. I guarantee that your students will love exploring many of the sites listed; take time to explore them yourself and see how fascinating and helpful they can be.

Doing Well on High-Stakes Tests

As a result of state mandates and the No Child Left Behind act, teachers everywhere are concerned about helping their students do well on state and national assessments. If we want students to succeed, we must understand one important fact: Students can only do well on these tests when they are accustomed to providing on a regular basis the types of responses that the tests demand. Ask them to identify the most important ideas in a chapter, to prepare summaries, and to think deeply about how the information can be synthesized, analyzed, evaluated, and interpreted.

We cannot and should not try to "prep" students for specific tests. Instead, we must teach them how to think. One technique that all teachers can use is the "Talk Through" strategy developed by Simpson (1995), in which students are asked to individually share their thinking about a text. For example, you might say to students, "Talk through the key ideas of the passage" or "Talk through the passage's examples and details to help us find the key ideas." To take the discussion to higher levels, ask students to talk through their personal connections and experiences with the key ideas, or to talk through their reactions to the key ideas presented. Engaging students in this manner will force them to go beyond the simple-knowledge level of thinking.

Beck, McKeown, Hamilton, and Kucan (1997) suggest a strategy called "Questioning the Author." In many high-stakes tests, understanding the writer's craft is a requirement for students to do well. "Questioning the Author" involves asking students what they think the author is trying to say. Ask students questions such as "Did the author explain this clearly?" and "Does this make sense given what the author told us before?"

On state writing tests, students will often be expected to write an expository or persuasive passage, or to analyze a narrative passage. To help your students do well on these tests, demonstrate how to understand what the instructions require by thinking aloud. Consistently assist students in analyzing instructions thoroughly before they begin to write. Most states provide examples of the kinds of reading and writing tasks students will face. Be sure to get copies of these samples and study them carefully so you know what will be expected of the students.

On many standardized tests, students are expected to analyze a narrative text by examining the writer's style and the way the story and the characters are developed, interpreting various aspects of the text, and identifying the story's themes. Students will need to be able to see relationships and patterns and draw conclusions about the characters' motives and behaviors. They must demonstrate that they have a thorough grasp of the meaning of the text. At the elementary level, students should be able to identify the theme of a story, any morals that might be suggested, and elements of character, setting, plot, problem, and resolution. Older students should be able to discuss the theme as well as any symbolism in the story, and to offer their analysis, evaluation, and opinions of the text. An excellent source for good writing-prompt ideas and examples of well-organized narrative, persuasive, and expository texts can be found at the Northwest Regional Lab's Six Traits Web site ( http://www.nwrel.org/assessment/department.asp?d=1).

To perform well on essay questions regarding expository text, students should use a consistent tone and focus their thoughts. Organization is assessed according to the strength of the introduction, the thesis and supporting details, and the conclusion. Show students good examples of texts that conform to these criteria. Students should also understand how to vary sentence types and patterns, use descriptive vocabulary to express their ideas, and have a clear sense of audience as they write. Content-area teachers can assist their language arts peers by frequently having students write and explore expository passages in their discipline.

Students may also be asked to write persuasive essays on state or national tests. To do well on these essays, students must understand how to support a position with evidence and factual details, anticipate alternative viewpoints, and provide thoughtful arguments to counter those viewpoints. Again, texts should include strong introductory and concluding statements.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress Standards

You have probably heard of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test, but do you really know what it is and how it is used? The test is a national reading exam authorized by Congress and administered by the U.S. Department of Education to randomly selected segments of 4th, 8th, and 12th grade students in the United States (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2003). Its purpose is to provide a snapshot of educational progress levels across the nation in various subject areas. The test examines three contexts for reading: reading for literary purposes, information, and to perform a task. Because many state tests ask similar types of questions as those used in the NAEP, examining the test's format is particularly helpful to teachers.

Examining the NAEP specifications helps us understand what our students are expected to know and be able to do. You can find a summary of these expectations in Appendix C. As you read through them, consider how you can address these performance indicators daily in your classroom.

Teaching Higher-Order Thinking Skills

Teachers are good at writing and asking literal questions (e.g., "Name the parts of a flower"), but we tend to do this far too often. Students must be taught to find the information they need, judge its worth, and think at higher levels. There is simply too much information in the world for us to waste students' time with regurgitations of basic facts. As Bellanca (1997) states:

Educators need to realize that there are many more ways to teach than by rote alone. There is teaching for understanding, decision making, problem solving, and connecting a part to a whole, detail to concept, and concept to concept. There also is inference, prediction, analysis for bias, and learning for transfer. Each of these processes requires some form of critical thinking. All are processes that students can develop and refine. Opportunities for students to develop critical thinking processes are not found in classrooms dominated by the regurgitation of short answers. They are found in classrooms where active learning is an essential component. (pp. xxi-xxii).

The old instructional paradigm asked students to read from the textbook and discuss the information to see if they learned the content. We then would test them on the material, lament over how many did poorly, move on to the next topic, and repeat the cycle. When we begin applying what we know about reading and learning, the effective content classroom will look quite different from this model. In the new paradigm, we will

Design prereading activities to activate background knowledge, establish purpose, and formulate questions that can drive inquiry.

Allow students to use active reading methods that include peer discussion, as well as to try out their thoughts and seek clarifications from one another as they are reading.

Model our own thought processes for students and ask that they make their own thinking visible as well.

Design activities that require students to process information at the highest levels of thought.

Examine our state curriculum standards to cull out the essential topics so that we can extend learning with greater depth, rather than try to teach curriculum that is a mile wide.

Strategies for Extending Thinking

Below are strategies for content teaching that extend learning to the higher levels of thinking. You can find additional strategies about this in my previous book, The Threads of Reading: Strategies for Literacy Development (Tankersley 2003).

Directed Reading and Thinking Activity

The directed reading and thinking activity (DR-TA) developed by Stauffer (1969) is still very helpful for processing text of all types at high levels. In the DR-TA, teachers walk students through setting purpose, making predictions, asking questions, and clarifying points in the text. The approach can be used in all content areas, from science to language arts to math.

The DR-TA begins with the students examining the title of the story or section to be read. From this information, they make predictions and set expectations regarding what the text is about. Next, either the teacher reads the material out loud or students read sections, stopping at designated points. Logical stopping points include subheadings, ends of chapters, or high points of a story. At each stopping point, teachers ask openended questions designed to elicit predictions or opinions about the text. The more they read, the more focused the students' predictions and opinions should become. Your role is to help maintain this focus by asking students to describe how elements in the text are connected and to provide evidence for any assertions, acting all the while as a nonjudgmental facilitator rather than a participant. The DR-TA structure forces students to justify their thoughts and link their opinions back to the text. As teachers, we can learn a lot about our students by listening to their ideas, values, background knowledge, and reasoning.

Letters from the Heart

Ask students to write a letter about some facet of a book. The letter can be addressed to the author, a historical figure, or a character in the book, and can be written either from the student's perspective or from that of another character. One of the four higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy-application, analysis, synthesis, or evaluation-should be evident in the letter.

Position Paper

Provide students with several articles on a specific topic that present two sides of an issue. Students should read the articles and take notes on points made by both sides. With a partner, they should then pick a side and write a position paper defending their position with factual evidence. Students can also participate in trials or debates on controversial issues. For a more advanced version of this activity, have students pretend they are senators and cast ballots either for or against a particular position. Tallying the votes also helps students practice math skills during the lesson.

Drawing Inferences

Bring in comic strips or political cartoons that require students to infer what the cartoonist meant. Ask students to work with a partner or small group to identify what inferences they need to make to interpret the point of the cartoon, and what connections they need to draw to do so.

"Dear Author" Letters

Ask students to write "Dear Author" letters based on their thoughts about a particular book or piece of writing. Many Web sites offer valuable information and research on a variety of authors.

"Wish You Were Here" Postcards

After reading, ask students to pretend that they are characters in the book and write "Wish You Were Here" postcards to their friends. This strategy is particularly useful during lessons on historical events.

Comparison-Contrast Questions

Ask students to develop comparison-contrast questions and write them in their graphic organizers. Examples: "How is a glove like your hand?" "How is a dog like a cat, and how are they different?" and "What would happen if circles were squares?"

Script Writing

Select a scene from a story and ask students to develop a script from it for Reader's Theater. Have students rehearse the script and present the performance for an audience.

R.A.F.T.

This strategy, developed by Santa (1988), helps students write with a focused purpose. Students can use any format they want-diary, letter, editorial, and so on-to answer the following questions from the perspective of a character they've read about:

R is for writer. Who are you?

A is for audience. Who will read your work?

F is for format. What type of writing will you do?

T is for topic. What will you be writing about?

A student could write as Cinderella, for example, thanking her fairy godmother for allowing her to go to the ball, or as George Washington, writing to his wife about the Revolutionary War.
Quickwrite

This is a good strategy for assessing student knowledge and comprehension on a topic. Ask students to take out a sheet of paper and write for 5-10 minutes, describing what they know about the topic and what they are still confused about or hoping to learn.

Seen the Movie?

Find a novel or historical text that has been made into a movie. Have students watch the movie and read the text, then compare and contrast the two versions. If you are using a historical text, see if the students can find inaccuracies or anachronisms in the film version.

Key Question Charts

Provide students with a controversial question, such as "Should companies be allowed to drill for oil in Alaska Artic National Wildlife Refuge?" Give students "pro" and "con" articles to read about the topic, and have them create a chart that lists the pro argument on one side and the con argument on the other. Ask the students to form an opinion of their own after carefully evaluating the data, and to provide a thorough analysis of their reasoning.

Diaries

Ask students to create a diary of a prominent or historical character related to the event or topic being studied-Thomas Jefferson, say, or a soldier in Vietnam. If more contemporary subjects are used, ask students to interview original sources with firsthand knowledge about the topic, and to compile their memories into a single diary that reflects how people thought and felt at the time of the event. Another form of this activity is to ask students to describe "a day in the life" of someone during the time period being studied, or to write a letter from that same perspective.

Rewriting Stories

Ask students to think of a story that they all know, such as "Little Red Riding Hood" or "Goldilocks," and to list the places, characters, and events that the story features. After rereading the tale, have the students update the list and see what elements they forgot. For a more advanced version of this activity, ask students to read three or four different versions of the same fairy tale and list the ways in which they differ.

Read-Paraphrase

Having students rewrite in their own words what they've read helps them develop deeper levels of comprehension. Ask students to stop reading at regular intervals to do this. Begin by modeling what you want them to do, and then allow them to paraphrase text with partners or in small groups of three or four. Give students no more than three sections to read in a textbook, and ask them to write a summary of the key ideas in 20 words or fewer. As students become comfortable with the process, ask them to make observations or ask questions about the material. Have each group share its summaries as a lead-in to more in-depth study of the topic.

Pro-Con-Interesting Fact

Provide students with a controversial statement or question. Have them work in small groups to make a chart containing three columns labeled "Pro," "Con," and "Interesting Facts." Ask students to research the topic and categorize the information they find under the three categories, form an opinion about the question, and then discuss their findings with the class.

Idea Web

Help students remember what they have learned by creating a wall graphic to represent their knowledge. On wall-sized mural paper, draw a circle in the center and write the name of the topic being studied. You might also write a question in the circle (e.g., "What do you think about the environment?" or "What is communism?"). Place chalk or markers in a basket in front of the mural. Tell students to approach the writing area in an orderly fashion and silently add to the mural by connecting a bubble with their own comments in it to the main bubble. Students may add as many links as they want, and may link to other people's comments as well as to the main bubble. You may participate as well, adding your own thoughts or ideas to the unfolding web. Allow plenty of wait time before deciding that the web is complete; students need time to read the comments and think about what has been added.

In another version of this strategy, pass a piece of paper around the room and have each student write something meaningful about the topic being studied. Have students sign their entries to ensure "seriousness" on their part.

Oxymorons

Have students collect oxymorons-terms that contain inherent contradictions, such as "true lies"-and add them to a classroom mural.

Book Symbols

Ask students to bring in five items that represent the book they have read and present them to the class, describing what they represent and why.

Modeling Children's Books

Many wonderful children's books can be used for patterning a new book. For example, you might ask students to read a book and create their own versions, employing the same patterns as the original. The books can then be presented to younger schoolmates as a holiday gift. This is a great activity for students serving as classroom reading buddies.

Conclusion

Learning to synthesize, evaluate, and process information in new ways is the key to preparing students for the world outside of school. We can no longer leave literacy development to language arts teachers. All teachers must learn to model their thinking processes and "make the invisible visible" to students. With the tightening of the higher-order thinking thread, the literacy weave will be complete.

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by Karen Tankersley The ultimate goal of literacy instruction is for students to be able to process text at the level of evaluation, synthesis, analysis, and interpretation. This level is the final thread in the reading tapestry.