Opinion
Education Letter to the Editor

How English Teachers Invert Bloom’s Taxonomy

October 26, 2009 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

To the Editor:

Thank you for Sam Wineburg and Jack Schneider’s excellent Commentary piece, “Inverting Bloom’s Taxonomy” (Oct. 7, 2009).

While I agree with most of what the authors say, I would ask each of them to confer with a colleague who teaches writing and look at a current essay-grading rubric. Writing teachers, at least in my five-year career, stress awareness of the audience as a key consideration before penning an essay of any genre. Considering the source of any artifact of writing, including the time, place, and cultural milieu, is essential to literary analysis.

Engaging “prior” knowledge should be at the base of the pyramid, connecting to and informing the why, what, and who questioning so vital to the steps of evaluation, synthesis, and analysis. The acquisition of “new” knowledge would appear at the summit. On all the points or layers in between, Messrs. Wineburg and Schneider and I are in agreement.

Perhaps high school English teachers have been inverting Bloom’s taxonomy all along.

Christy Anne Vaughan

Kemmerer, Wyo.

A version of this article appeared in the October 28, 2009 edition of Education Week as How English Teachers Invert Bloom’s Taxonomy

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Briefly Stated: March 13, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read
Education Briefly Stated: February 21, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education Briefly Stated: February 7, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education Briefly Stated: January 31, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read