Anderson and Krathwohl map six levels: remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating, creating. These are not a hierarchy of worth. Recall is foundational, not inferior.
Anderson and Krathwohl's revision of Bloom sets out six cognitive processes: remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating and creating. It's a planning tool for questions, not a ladder to climb.
Why it works
The common misreading treats recall as the low-value bottom rung to be escaped as fast as possible. It is not. Analysis without secure knowledge produces confident nonsense, and Willingham's point that you can't think critically about content you don't know applies directly. The taxonomy is useful for making sure your questions span the range, not for ranking them by worth.
How to run it
- Take a topic and write one question at each of the six levels.
- Notice which levels you find hard to write for. That is usually where your questioning is thin.
- Sequence them so the knowledge questions come before the ones that depend on that knowledge.
- Keep returning to remembering later in the unit, not just at the start.
Where technology serves
A question bank organised by level makes the range visible and stops the same three question types recurring across a unit.
Watch for: Treating the top three levels as the real teaching and recall as a warm-up produces students who can evaluate a topic they can't describe.