This morning started in chaos. The WiFi was down. I scrambled. I needed something fast, something engaging, something that didn’t rely on the internet—but still moved our learning forward.
I could’ve defaulted to a worksheet. Basic questions. Called it a day.
But that’s not really my style.
I knew today’s goal: students needed to be able to explain the importance of suffrage to the women’s rights movement. So I reframed the whole thing.
I found the textbook section on the Seneca Falls Convention. Pulled a quick video to provide a visual. And then we did a Sketch and Tell-o using three basic questions pulled from the reading. Nothing flashy. Just layered and intentional.
But here’s where the shift happened. Before anything else, I put this statement on the board:
“Suffrage wasn’t that important to the women’s rights movement—it was just one of many demands.” Change my mind.
I didn’t ask for answers. I didn’t ask for agreement or disagreement. I just planted the idea to frame the entire lesson.
Reframing like this shifts the role of the student. They’re no longer just receivers of information. They’re investigators. They’re critics. They’re thinking, “How can I change Moler’s mind?”” It forces them to process the content with a lens—to notice not just what’s said, but what’s emphasized, what’s missing, and why it matters.
By the time we got to the end of class, they weren’t just summarizing facts. They were defending ideas. They were deciding how important suffrage really was—based on what they had just read, watched, and sketched.
It’s the same content. The same objective. But the task changes the thinking. That’s the power of reframing. And it didn’t require anything fancy.
Moler's Musings 