• Focus a discussion on a big idea, ethics, a moral dilemma, and such
• Sequence a series of events, a process, a timeline, and more by interpreting a point of view
• For younger students, simple sequencing and ordering will work

You’ve Got the Idea AND the Rank & Reason Tool to Build It! 

Writing a Rank & Reason discussion lesson is quite easy once you have the idea. The tool is intuitive and a basic Rank & Reason discussion can be set up in 5-10 minutes. Of course, your first one may take longer as you learn the tool and exactly which pieces you want to use.  

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Using Skill Builders Outside of Whole Class Instruction

Skill Builders are a great way to give students the time and practice they need to master foundational skills. They tap into student interests like sports, movies, music, and more and provide repeated practice of a single skill. We have seen several teachers use Skill Builders as part of their whole-class instruction when introducing a sill for the first time. However, we have also seen our Skill Builders used in other creative ways as well! 

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• English Learners need accessible vocabulary and structure
• Struggling students should participate but need a lower reading level
• Accelerated students should be challenged with more complex language

Setting the Reading Level in ELA Performance Tasks

First, we are talking about ELA Performance Tasks and not Math. The ELA Performance Tasks are much denser with language, structure, vocabulary, and require writing – making them our top priority.

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Real Time View and Submissions View for Student Work

While many of our Projects and Activities contain offline hands-on components, usually some portion of the Project or Activity requires students to input their responses or answers online. Guess what, we give you insight into these responses in both real time and submissions view! We know how important it is to be able to monitor students progress throughout a lesson to identify areas needing reteaching, opportunities to intervene, and also the ability to assess student work. NextLesson’s interactive platform will save you time by giving you insight into student progress and work.

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• Increase the complexity by adding to the ranking list
• Support the items in the list with images or text
• Clarify the question with more background info
• Edit the driving question to match your curriculum more closely

Simple Editing for Rank & Reason Discussions

Let’s face it. As a profession, we are a group of editors who like to adapt and edit lessons, even our own, from year to year or class to class. Knowing this, we wanted to give the editing power to teachers as much as possible. Note: Editing prior to students beginning their interaction with Rank & Reason will ensure everyone has the same changes.

Here are four quick scenarios and the editing solutions:

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