Doug Lemov's field notes

Here’s a tiny TLaC 2.0 Excerpt on the topic of Stretch It Let’s assume you asked a student to add three and five. After she correctly gave you an answer of eight, you decided to Stretch It a bit and reward correct work with harder questions. Here are a number of ways you might stretch her:

• Good. What’s 13 + 5?
• Good. What’s 30 + 50?
• Good. What’s 8 – 5?
• Good. What’s 5 + 3?
• Good. What’s 4 + 5?
• Good. Can you write me a story problem modeling that equation?
• Good. Can you show me how you know?

These are all fine follow-ups to the original problem, but which one do you choose? With so many options for stretching even a very simple question, how do you keep your stretching from becoming scatter shot and haphazard? How do you keep your lessons from stretching all over the map? Your being aware of a variety of types of questions can help you push yourself to be broad and diverse in the ways you challenge your students; at the same time, some strategic focus can help you ensure that your use of Stretch It accomplishes important, objective-aligned goals in your classroom. Regardless of the type of question, it’s always useful to remember lesson objectives. Although it’s good to do some “lateral” stretching (that is, into new areas), and it’s good to do some reinforcement stretching (that is, to keep skills students have mastered alive by circling back to them for occasional practice), reserve most of your Stretch Its for questions that alignmost closely to your objectives for that day or your current unit. This will help you keep the technique focused and productive.

Stretch It