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Playlist: Bookmarks

Don’t Just List Ethical Issues

For Teachers

My students made a list of problems… and we stopped right there.

A Chapter’s 🏛️ Big Idea

For Teachers

Let’s improve “Create a title for this chapter. Explain why your title fits the 🏛️ Big Idea.”

Comparing Characters

Your young students will compare how two characters have changed in a story.

Concept Formation

For Teachers

A model of instruction that moves from specific examples to concepts to one big idea.

Two Animals Switch Biomes

What if a capybara and a kangaroo rat switched homes? Would their adaptations be helpful at all?

Go Beyond “Identify Figurative Language”

For Teachers

So students can identify a simile, metaphor, and hyperbole. What next?

Coral Reef – Mixed Up Paragraph

Can you use the context clues to get these sentences about the coral reef back into the correct order?

Grouping Shapes by Parallel and Perpendicular Sides

Which shapes go together based on parallel and perpendicular lines?

Super Specific Similes: Loud Class

Let’s make this simile about a loud class super specific!

Super Specific Similes: Stinky Seaweed

Start with a basic simile. Now make it more specific. Now even more. Watch how much better writing gets with each round.

Depth and Complexity and Graphic Organizers

For Teachers

Let’s see a few examples of how Depth and Complexity slides nicely into any graphic organizer.

Prefixes and Suffixes in Other Languages

Let’s go beyond merely memorizing word parts and instead analyze across languages. How do other languages make a word the opposite?

Graphic Organizers and Higher Order Thinking

For Teachers

A few quick tips on how to better use graphic organizers to support higher-order thinking.

Lesson Makeovers: 3 Big Ideas

For Teachers

After looking at dozens of lessons folks sent in, I came up with three big ideas to address.

From “Identify” to “Analyze” – Famous Structures

For Teachers

Rather than just learning about one structure, let’s climb Bloom’s and think more deeply.

Writing Concept Attainment Lessons

For Teachers

In a Concept Attainment lesson, we give students examples and non-examples of a concept — without telling them what that concept is!

Mow A Lawn

How long would it take to mow a very large lawn with a push-mower?

Tournament: 8 Wonders of the Solar System

Which location is the most wondrous place in the solar system?

Parts of Speech Tournament

Which part of speech is most useful? Interesting? Strange?

Fancier Figurative Language: Use the Opposite

Let’s start with “As cold as fire.”

Analyzing Conflict with the Content Imperatives

How to go deep into conflict using the Content Imperatives.

Writing About Art: The Scream

Your students will turn the iconic painting The Scream into a vivid, sensory poem.

Difficult vs Complex Tasks

For Teachers

What separates difficulty from complexity? And why do complex tasks lead to much more natural differentiation?

Creating Sequences of Questions

For Teachers

High-level questions on their own simply aren’t enough. We must create sequences of questions!

Complex Task: Academic Tournaments

For Teachers

Who would win in the Tournament of Least Useful Geometric Shapes or Bravest Shakespearean Characters? Create an academic tournament and watch your students’ brains sweat!

Developing Questions that Prompt Thinking in Math

For Teachers

Math is a particularly tricky subject for asking higher-level questions. Here are a couple of techniques I’ve used to prompt students to think, not merely calculate.

Changing Coordinating Conjunctions

What happens when we switch out a “but” with a “so”? An “and” with a “for”? How can such tiny words make such big differences?

Writing Technique: Triple Anadiplosis!

Have students mastered the art of anadiplosis: ending one sentence with the beginning of the next? Now it’s time to take it to the next level!

Doubling Up Writing: Anadiplosis

Repeating words can be what you want, if what you want is an interesting effect. (Psst, that’s an example of anadiplosis!)

Writing Technique: Contrast With Synonyms

A specific technique to help students add some spice to their writing. We’ll be contrasting two ideas using synonyms.

Ambiguous Sentences

Rather than just demand that students “write clearly,” we’ll explore the hazards of poorly written sentences… and maybe create one of our own!

Punctuation Power

In a sentence, punctuation may seem meek when compared to those mighty words, but punctuation has incredible power over the meaning of a sentence. Students will try re-punctuating sentences to find new meanings – without changing a single word!

Paragraphs: Systems of Sentences

Blow up a paragraph into individual sentences. Now reassemble it. The clues hiding in each sentence will surprise you.

What’s In My Brain: Trapezoids or Not?

Which are trapezoids and which are not?

Not Like The Others: Charlotte’s Web

Four Charlotte’s Web characters. One doesn’t belong. But which one? That depends on your argument.

Advanced Alliteration and Consonance

When students learn about alliteration, it’s hard to steer them away from goofy tongue-twisters. Certainly, there must be more powerful and practical ways of using alliteration. In this lesson, I draw on delicious examples from Shakespeare to show how a very advanced writer used alliteration. Then, I break those ideas down so students can try them out.

Fraction Ordering Tournament

Which set of fractions would be the trickiest to order from least to greatest? Let’s have a tournament!

The Personalities of Rocks

What would an igneous rock be like? Would it get along with a sedimentary rock? Could they handle the hot personality of a metamorphic rock?

Complex or Compound – What’s In My Brain

Can your class spot the complex sentences vs compound sentences?

Grouping Quadrilaterals In A Hierarchy

Can we classify quadrilaterals like we classify living things?

More Specific than “Smart”

When students are told that they’re “smart”, what does this word actually mean to them? (Psst. It isn’t what we intended.)

Upgrading Compare and Contrast Writing

Upgrade compare and contrast writing with just a couple of key words.

Showing A Character’s Trait

We tell students to ‘show, not tell’ — but that advice is useless until they experience the difference. This lesson makes it click.

Multiple Meaning Matcher – Introduction

Your students will try to match up definitions that belong to the same homophone in this brain-boggling vocab puzzle.

Climbing Bloom’s with Depth and Complexity

For Teachers

Bloom’s tells you how high to aim. Depth and Complexity tells you where to look. Combine them and things get interesting.

Analyze Character Change with Depth and Complexity

Your students will use Depth and Complexity to note how a character’s main trait changes across a story.

How Many Students Can Fit On The Playground?

So… just how many kids could we cram onto the playground?

Ways to Start a Sentence – Level 2

We’ll show students how to add more variety to their writing by starting sentences with a reason, a prepositional phrase, and a simile.

Ways to Start a Sentence – Level 1

‘Add more variety!’ teachers say. But how? This lesson gives students actual techniques instead of vague advice.

Fancier Figurative Language: Start with a Cliche

We’ll start with the cliché “as cold as ice” and go somewhere much more interesting.

Add Layers To Direct Instruction

For Teachers

Take direction instruction beyond a monotonous practice of the same skill over and over.

Better Stories Part 2: Types of Conflict

If your students’ stories are packed with endless ninja fights or arguments between frenemies, it’s time to expose them to a wider range of conflicts.

Better Stories Part 1: The Big Idea

We open our unit on narrative writing with a big idea: “structure increases creativity.” I show how this is true by bringing in examples from across all disciplines.

Better Stories Part 4: Character Archetypes

Are students’ characters a bit flat? Archetypes give them a strong foundation on which to build their own characters as well as a tool to analyze existing stories.