Differentiate one task into three versions without dumbing it down

Differentiate one task into three versions without dumbing it down

Differentiation is the planning move that quietly does not happen at 9:45pm on a Wednesday. Three versions of a task takes three times as long to write as one, and the version that goes home with the kids who need it most is usually the one that has had the thinking quietly trimmed out of it. The trick is keeping the cognitive verb of the learning intention constant across all three bands, and only varying the scaffolds and the inputs.

The prompt

You are an experienced [SUBJECT] teacher in an Australian [PRIMARY / SECONDARY / TERTIARY] classroom. You differentiate by adjusting scaffolds and access points, not by lowering what students are expected to think about.

The learning intention for tomorrow: [PASTE THE LI IN ONE SENTENCE, in student-facing language, e.g. "I can explain how a writer's word choice shapes the reader's view of a character"]
Year level: [YEAR LEVEL]
Subject: [SUBJECT]
Curriculum link: [ACARA v9.0 content descriptor, VCE study design dot point, or your own success criteria, copied verbatim]
The base task I have already drafted: [PASTE THE FULL TASK INSTRUCTIONS AS YOU WOULD HAND THEM TO THE MIDDLE OF THE CLASS]
Time students will have: [MINUTES]
Class context: [ONE SENTENCE, e.g. "Year 9 mixed ability, four EAL/D students, two students with IEPs flagging working-memory load, one student two years above cohort"]

Produce THREE versions of this task: an Entry version, a Target version, and a Stretch version.

The non-negotiable: all three versions must require the SAME cognitive move from the learning intention. The verb in the LI is the verb in all three tasks. If the LI says "explain", all three tasks must require explanation. Do NOT give the Entry students "list" while the Stretch students "evaluate". That is not differentiation. That is three different lessons.

ENTRY version (for students who would otherwise stall on the base task):
a. Same cognitive move, smaller content load. Reduce the number of inputs, not the demand on what students do with them.
b. Add ONE specific scaffold from this list and no more: a worked partial-response, a sentence frame for the first line, a visible structure with two or three labelled slots, a vocab box of three Tier 2 or Tier 3 words with a one-line definition each.
c. Do not pre-fill the thinking. The scaffold sets up the move; the student still makes it.
d. Name the success indicator in plain English: what a student finishing this version successfully would produce.

TARGET version (the base task, refined):
a. Take the base task I gave you and rewrite it for clarity only. Same demand, same length.
b. Name the one piece of wording in the original that was most likely to lose students who could otherwise do the task, and rewrite that line.
c. Name the success indicator in plain English.

STRETCH version (for students who would finish the base task with time and capacity to spare):
a. Same cognitive move, more demanding inputs. Add complexity through the source material, a counter-example, or a constraint. Not by piling on extra tasks.
b. Add ONE specific stretch from this list and no more: a complicating constraint, a second source that complicates the first, an evaluative add-on that requires defending a position, a counter-example to address.
c. Do not just say "write more". The stretch is in the thinking, not the word count.
d. Name the success indicator in plain English.

After the three versions, produce:

THE LIVE ROUTING: one sentence on how I should hand these out in the room without it becoming a public ranking. Pick from: by named groups I have already set, by self-select with the Target version on the desk by default, or by warm-up performance in the first ten minutes of the lesson. Justify against the class context I gave you.

THE COMMON SHARE: name ONE prompt or question I can put to the whole class at the end of the lesson that all three versions feed into, so the closing discussion does not collapse into the Target students' answers. The question must work for all three versions.

THE EQUITY CHECK: one sentence on which student in the class context I gave you is most likely to be quietly miscued by version assignment, and what to watch for in the first five minutes to catch it.

THE SANITY CHECK: one sentence on whether the three versions you produced actually do all require the same cognitive move from the LI. If you suspect you slipped the demand down for Entry or up for Stretch, say so and tell me which line gave it away.

Australian English throughout. Do not use the phrases "deep dive", "unpack", or "scaffold their thinking".

What it does well

Forces the model to hold the cognitive verb of the LI constant across all three versions, which is the move that turns differentiation from "Entry students list while Stretch students evaluate" into actual differentiation. The named scaffold and stretch lists are the bit that stop the Entry version becoming "the same task with sentence frames everywhere" and the Stretch version becoming "the same task in 400 words instead of 200".

Where it falls over

The model does not know which scaffold actually unblocks which student. The vocab box you pre-load may include the three words your kids absolutely know, while missing the one cultural reference that quietly loses your EAL/D students. Read the Entry version against three specific students before you print. The prompt also will not save a task built on the wrong LI. If the LI is closed and recall-shaped, the "same cognitive verb" rule just preserves the closed recall across all three versions, which is differentiation theatre.

Try it like this

For Year 7 English (an analytical sentence on a set text): the Entry sentence frame should set up the inference move, not finish it. "The writer uses [WORD] to make the reader feel [FEELING] because..." beats "The writer uses [WORD]." The Stretch should add a second short quote that complicates the first, with one line of evaluation.

For Year 10 maths (a word problem with one unknown): the Entry version drops two of the three context sentences but keeps the same equation structure. The Stretch version adds a constraint that makes the obvious method ugly, forcing students to choose between two methods and justify the choice.

For VCE Unit 2 history (a source analysis paragraph): the Entry version pre-loads two Tier 3 historical terms in a vocab box. The Stretch version adds a second source that contradicts the first on one factual point, and asks which to trust.

If you only have ten minutes today, run it on the task you were going to set the whole class anyway. The Entry and Stretch versions take less time to draft from a refined Target than from a blank page.

The cognitive verb stays the same across all three. Everything else flexes.