[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/dwxmPrBdIcQ" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]Yvonne McBlain, Effective Teaching and Learning Support Teacher in Falkirk Education Services Curriculum Support team has been working with class 4C2 at Falkirk High School and their English teacher Laura Fyfe. Laura wanted to support 4C2 as much as possible in their study of Macbeth as a text for their Higher English exam critical essay paper. Laura consulted with her pupils to see what they felt they needed to revise, she then worked with Yvonne to devise a support programme around their wishes to give the pupils  a deep and flexible knowledge of the play. On 13th March the pupils created mind-maps to help them review their knowledge and understanding. On 20th March, Yvonne designed a lesson to help pupils realise the difference between high and low order questions. The pupils used Bloom’s question fans to work in pairs and trios to create questions about the play. Next Wednesday pupils will pose their questions to another pair/trio. This will allow them to self assess their questions and get peer validation of this. Our plan then is to create a bank of higher order questions which form a quiz for our last lesson on 17th April. Today, pupils were observed looking back through their notes in order to gather information to make their questions. They were obviously drawing on their knowledge, collaborating with peers to develop their understanding, and applying all of this to their creation of the questions. The pupils found it difficult to understand the categorisation of questions at first, but the video above was helpful to them as part of the lesson. Click on Anderson’s revision of Bloom’s taxonomy below to see the lesson power point.

Here is a selection of the questions pupils have composed so far:

Remembering – Can you recall who said “Is this a dagger I see before me?” ?

Understanding – Can you explain what is meant by “none of woman born can harm Macbeth”?

Applying – What examples can you find to show the effect Lady Macbeth had on Macbeth?

Analysing – Why did Macbeth choose to kill Duncan?

Evaluating – How would you evaluate Macbeth’s mental breakdown?

Creating – How would you improve the plot?