---
up:
  - "[[Sources]]"
author:
  - "[[Bob Bain]]"
year: 2020
encountered: 2020-06-13
in:
  - "[[Articles]]"
  - "[[Sources]]"
---
 *Support, Extend, Challenge*

“those verbs emerged from work we did trying to understand active reading to figure out ways to help high school students become active readers about “stuff” teachers were teaching. It occurred to us that all new information or ideas must support, extend, or challenge existing ideas or information you already have and that has led to those verbs being cognitive tools for students” Bob Bain

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This effort to encourage active, engaged thinking relates to the mindset behind Evergreen notes, namely that [[Evergreen notes compound in value over time]].
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"Years ago, we were working on an R&D project in curriculum with high school students in Detroit. The students “read” texts just as I did when I was in high school – skimming it to find sentences to copy to “answer” teacher assigned or questions at back of text. I don’t think I ever read a complete chapter while a high school student, simply skimmed and copied enough to get me a check or a “C”. No active reader or thinker I, but active skimmer! I “studented” my way through high school, not learning much. And we were seeing “studenting” among students with whom we were working.

We puzzled over what made more thoughtful, active readers and started tracking briefly our “no-longer-studenting” reading practices. We concluded that before reading something we had some theory or conjecture about what we’d find there, no matter how vague or naïve. Then, what we were reading either “supported” or “extended” or "challenged’ our pre-reading ideas.

No great insight, really, as others like Piaget had asserted similar things in a far more nuanced language (assimilation/ assimilating and accommodation/accommodating ).

However, my colleagues and I wondered if we could turn those thinking verbs – support, extend, challenge – into cognitive tools students could use to do less studenting and more thinking when reading.

So, we trialed a new approach to assigned reading in our R&D work:

1. Asked students first for a freewrite conjecture about the topic so students could see what they thought.
2. Then assigned reading by asking students to identify or explain how the text “supported,” “extended” or “challenged” their thinking.

Turned out to have some power. Students began to look at texts in relation to their thinking and not some pre-packaged questions teachers asked.

We’ve used this in every curricular project since (about 18 years of it). I use in my own teaching, often employing those verbs when reading multiple texts (e.g., how does Dewey’s essay support, extend, or challenge piece by Thorndike? In what ways do they support, extend, or challenge your thinking about learning?)

On last thing: I use those verbs in my re-purposing my notes when working in earnest on a problem I need to write about or teach. The verbs become “functional” tags that define a relationship among notes or ideas – these support each other, or extend each other, or challenge each other."