Why do people think rigor only comes from weirdly worded questions with hard vocabulary? Or that multiple pages of reading automatically equate to a challenging learning experience?
Rigor isn’t just about making things hard—it’s about making learning meaningful.
I’ve seen a one-page reading with well-designed tasks lead to deeper thinking than a five-page article with a set of dry comprehension questions. The secret? The tasks we ask students to do with the content.
Instead of throwing long passages at students and calling it rigorous, we should be designing engaging, thought-provoking activities that push them to think critically and apply what they’ve learned. Here are a few ways to shift the focus:
- 3xPOV or 3xGenre – Instead of just summarizing, have students rewrite the same historical event from three different perspectives or in three different genres (e.g., news article, journal entry, poem). This forces them to deeply engage with the content and consider different viewpoints.
- Thick Slides – Give students a small piece of reading and have them generate key takeaways, add two images to represent the ideas, and correct a common misconception about the topic. This helps them move beyond surface-level understanding.
- Sketch & Tell-O – Rather than just answering a comprehension question, students sketch a concept, label key elements, and write a brief explanation. This encourages deeper processing and makes abstract ideas more concrete.
It’s not about how much they read or how difficult the vocabulary is—it’s about what they do with the information. If we truly want rigor, we have to focus less on making learning harder and more on making it better.
Moler's Musings 