Understanding Bloom Reading and Writing
Understanding Bloom Reading and Writing
Taxonomy
Educators often use a model of learning called “Bloom’s Taxonomy”.
This taxonomy divides learning into categories that instructors can use to
specify the learning that they wish to see in their students—and to build
assignments and assessments that target those types of learning.
As a student, you can use this model as a way to think more deeply about
what you are trying to accomplish when you do an assignment and to
understand better the kinds of learning that your professors are asking you to
do, even if your professor isn’t using this model intentionally.
A Brief History of Bloom’s Taxonomy
This model was originally developed in the 1950s and 60s by a group of
researchers led by educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom—a model that
became known as “Bloom’s Taxonomy.” Bloom’s work was revised in 2001 by
another group of researchers led by Lorin W. Anderson, a former student of
Bloom’s, and David R. Krathwohl. To distinguish between the two, writers
sometimes add the word “revised,” but most people just call it “Bloom’s
Taxonomy,” no matter which version they are using.
There are four types of knowledge in the revised version, and they move
along a continuum from concrete factual knowledge through conceptual and
procedural knowledges to metacognition, which is much more abstract than
the other types. Then, there are six cognitive processes, listed as verbs:
remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.
These are depicted in this figure as a grid, which emphasizes how these
dimensions intersect. Notice how the stacks get higher as you move from the
factual/remember grid block to the metacognition/create block. This implies
that these tasks become more complex as you move “up” the axes. However,
as we’ll see, this isn’t always true.
You can think about the knowledge dimension as the type of information or
ideas that you are supposed to demonstrate and/or work with when you get to
the cognitive processes dimension.
If you search online, you will often see Bloom’s Taxonomy presented as a
pyramid, like this:
“Bloom’s Taxonomy.” Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved
July 9, 2022, from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-
taxonomy/. Licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license.
This version of the model focuses on the cognitive processes and ignores the
knowledge dimension, but it’s helpful here.
Creating asks you to make something new. What you make and whether you
create it in writing depends heavily on your discipline. Painting a self-portrait,
for example, would not be done in writing, though a professor might ask you to
write about your experiences. While designing a biology experiment would be
done with some writing, you’d focus more on the hypothesis, data gathering
methods, and calculations—though, you would almost certainly be expected
to write up the results. However, some creating is done entirely in writing (e.g.,
create a handout explaining Bloom’s taxonomy to other education students).
I don’t favor the pyramid because it implies that “remember” is the least
important and “create” is the most, but the last three especially are all fairly
complex intellectual tasks. To get at this idea, some renditions use an inverted
pyramid with analyzing, evaluating, and creating on an equal footing at the
top.
© Rawia Inaim. “Bloom’s Taxonomy.” Retrieved July 12, 2022, from
https://opentextbc.ca/studentsuccess/chapter/effective-questions/. Licensed
under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license.
LOTS and HOTS
Many educational professionals call remembering, understanding, and
applying “lower order thinking skills” (sometimes abbreviated “lots”) and
analyzing, evaluating, and creating “higher order thinking skills” (“hots”). The
difference is primarily the complexity of the intellectual work required to do
one or the other.
In writing assignments and other complex tasks, the “hots” often build on the
“lots” so ultimately multiple levels appear in any given work product.
In addition to the depictions I’ve included here, you can find Bloom’s
taxonomy in many forms: a chart, a circle, even a rose! If the representations
I’ve included here don’t work for you, do a quick search online.