September 2013 | Volume 71 | Number 1
Resilience and Learning Pages 78-79
Art and Science of Teaching /
Cognitive Verbs and the
Common Core
Robert J. Marzano
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) present a new
mandate and challenge for K–12 educators—teaching and
reinforcing cognitive verbs. These verbs, referred to
as academic vocabulary, signal the type of mental
operations that students are expected to perform. For
example, the verb evaluate indicates that students are to
determine whether something is right or wrong or good or
bad. The verb execute indicates that they are expected to do
something that has steps or phases.
One resource that can help teachers reinforce these verbs is
the list in Figure 1, which contains 227 cognitive verbs
organized into 24 categories of semantically related terms.
This list was generated by analyzing the mathematics and
English language arts (ELA) content standards as well as
the mathematics practice standards and the ELA college and
career readiness standards.
FIGURE 1. Cognitive Verbs in Semantic Categories
Add to: combine, deepen, improve, incorporate, integrate,
introduce
Arrange: arrange, list, organize, sort
Big picture: comprehend, contextualize, orient, understand
Collaborate: collaborate, contribute, engage, interact,
participate, share
Compare: associate, categorize, classify, compare, connect,
contrast, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, link, match,
relate
Create: accomplish, achieve, build, compose, construct,
create, develop, draft, form, generate, initiate, produce,
publish, record, stimulate
Decide: choose, decide, select
Define: define, delineate, determine, discern, establish,
exemplify, identify, interpret, label, locate, name, recall,
recognize
Elaborate: broaden, derive, elaborate, enhance, expand
Evaluate: assess, check, critique, evaluate, judge
Execute: advance, calculate, conduct, compute, employ,
execute, navigate
Explain: answer, articulate, clarify, communicate, convey,
describe, explain, express, inform, narrate, present, recount,
report, respond, retell, state, summarize, synthesize
Hypothesize: anticipate, approximate, conjecture, consider,
estimate, experiment, explore, hypothesize, pose, predict,
test
Infer: conclude, deduce, generalize, infer, reason
Measure: gauge, measure, quantify
Metacognitive: appreciate, attend, design, monitor,
persevere, plan, prepare, reflect, self-correct
Problem solve: figure out, overcome, problem solve,
resolve, solve, surmount
Prove/argue: argue, assert, challenge, claim, confirm,
defend, disagree, justify, persuade, promote, prove, quantify,
specify, support, verify
Pull apart: analyze, decompose, decontextualize, diagnose,
examine, grapple, investigate, partition, probe
Redo: redo, repeat, reread, revisit
Reference: acknowledge, cite, consult, plagiarize, refer,
reference, trace
Seek information: acquire, ask, capture, compile, detect,
elicit, encounter, evoke, find out, gather, listen, note, notice,
observe, question, request, research, search, seek, study
Symbolize: act out, chart, conceptualize, demonstrate,
depict, diagram, graph, illustrate, imagine, map, model,
represent, symbolize, visualize
Transform: accentuate, adapt, adjust, alter, apply, conform,
convert, edit, emphasize, manipulate, modify, paraphrase,
rearrange, refine, replace, revise, rewrite, shape, shift,
simplify, strengthen, substitute, tailor, transform, translate,
update
Source: From Vocabulary for the Common Core, pp. 57–88,
by R. Marzano and J. Simms, 2013, Bloomington, IN:
Marzano Research Lab. Reprinted with permission.
Consider the category titled "compare," which contains the
terms associate, categorize, classify, compare, connect,
contrast, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, link,
and match. Although these terms are not necessarily
synonyms, they all consider how things are similar and
different.
Five Steps to Teaching Cognitive Verbs
The following steps can help teachers use semantic
similarities to teach cognitive verbs.1
Step 1. Provide an explanation or example of how the term
is used and what it means in the context of the subject area
in which it's being used. For example, the term analyze—
which I might define as "to closely examine the parts of
something so that you can see how they fit together"—
means different things in different subject areas.
In language arts, when you analyze the development of a
theme, you find parts of the text where the author builds the
theme and examine how those parts work together to
communicate the theme. When you analyze a presentation,
you examine how the words, images, and information affect
the overall presentation. When you analyze the role of
figures of speech in a text, you examine what each means
and how each affects the tone of the text.
In math, you look carefully at each part of a problem and
decide what to do about that part. When you analyze a
shape, you look at its sides, angles, size, and dimensions.
When you analyze a graph, you look at each data point and
figure out what information each element provides.
In addition to subject-specific explanations of cognitive
verbs, teachers might also explain to students how they
engaged in the mental action signaled by the verb. For
example, a mathematics teacher might explain how he or
she engaged in the activity of analyzing the previous day
when reading the bar graph in the textbook.
Step 2. Have students record their own explanations and
examples of the term. This step is greatly facilitated if
students have academic notebooks in which they not only
make daily notes about what they're learning, but also keep
a record of vocabulary terms for a given subject area. The
last 10 to 20 pages of the academic notebook can serve as
the vocabulary section.
Students shouldn't simply copy the teacher's explanations
but should generate their own. For example, for the
term analyze, a mathematics student might write
"analyze means you pull out the details of something you're
studying, like a chart or a graph."
Step 3. Have students record a picture, symbol, or graphic
representation that reminds them of the meaning of the
word. The purpose of this step is not to generate a graphic
representation that completely captures the meaning of the
term, but to create an illustration that reminds students of the
image they have in their mind regarding the term's meaning.
For example, for analyze, a student might draw a stick figure
of a person looking at a book. However, while recording the
stick figure, the student is creating a rich multidimensional
mental image that might involve not only mental pictures, but
also internal dialogue and kinesthetic sensations. She might
be imagining herself in an analysis task that she performed
the previous day. Her mental representation might include
the things she was saying to herself as well as the sensation
of sitting at her desk and listening to the teacher. The
student's mental representation is the focus of this activity.
The representation in the notebook simply reminds students
of their mental representation.
Step 4. Once students have recorded one term in their
notebook, teach other terms in that category using
comparison and contrast. One purpose of organizing the
cognitive terms into the 24 semantic categories is to help
teachers easily introduce related terms.
For example, once students have written down the
term analyze, the teacher might introduce the
termsdiagnose and partition. Students can work in teams to
discuss how these terms are similar to and different
from analyze—and each other. After the discussion,
students enter the new terms in their notebooks.
Step 5. As they use cognitive verbs in class, students should
update their notebook entries. Students might initially have a
partial understanding of a term. However, over time, as the
meanings become deeper and more robust, students will be
able to provide sharper definitions.
An Easier Way to Learn
The cognitive verbs are a crucial part of understanding the
Common Core standards. In this five-step process, teachers
take advantage of semantic clustering to help students
develop a deep understanding of these verbs.
Endnote
1
I discuss these five steps in Building Background Knowledge for
Academic Achievement: Research on What Works in
Schools (ASCD, 2004) and Teaching Basic and Advanced Terms:
A Framework for Direct Vocabulary Instruction (Cengage Learning
& ASCD, 2010).
Robert J. Marzano is cofounder and CEO of Marzano Research
Laboratory in Denver, Colorado, and executive director of the
Learning Sciences Marzano Center in Palm Beach Gardens,
Florida. He is coauthor, with Michael Toth, of Teacher Evaluation
That Makes a Difference: A New Model for Teacher Growth and
Student Achievement (ASCD, 2013).
KEYWORDS
Click on keywords to see similar products:
vocabulary, standards, language arts