About this activity
Sixteen questions about written directions with something buried in them: answer questions four through nine, skip seven — how many do you answer; choose two of the four prompts, write 300 words minimum on each — what is your minimum total; cite at least three sources, no more than one of which may be a website — how many websites may you cite. Every item hides its answer behind a condition.
How to use it in a session
Make the student find the qualifying clause before answering. Skip seven, no more than one of which, not on the first line — these are the phrases that decide the answer, and highlighting them is the transferable habit. The minimum-total item is worth extra time because it requires arithmetic on top of comprehension, which is exactly what a rubric does. Fifteen minutes covers the sixteen.
What to listen for
Watch what happens to the negation. Not on the first line and no more than one are the two constructions students consistently reverse, answering with the thing that was excluded. Notice whether the student re-reads before answering — a first-pass answer on a direction with a condition in it is usually wrong, and building the re-read habit is worth more than getting any one item right.
Carrying it home
Assignment sheets are the practice material and they arrive weekly. Asking a student to underline every condition before starting takes a minute and catches the missed clause while it still matters.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Sixth through ninth, where written directions get long and carry exceptions.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all sixteen items play with no account and no card.
- Why do students miss these when they understand the content?
- Because the difficulty is syntactic rather than conceptual. Exceptions and conditions sit in subordinate clauses, and a student who reads for the main clause gets a coherent instruction that happens to be the wrong one.