Sarah here—in Part I, I introduce basic learning principles to help students master the basics of your lessons: facts, information, simple concepts and ideas, even basic skills—six minutes at a time. We begin with the lowest level of Bloom's Taxonomy: retrieving. It turns out that giving students multiple opportunities to retrieve information from their memories is the most effective way for them to master basic knowledge. Similarly, the act of predicting encourages students to draw on their prior knowledge and strengthen their web of context for new information. Sprinkle in regular opportunities for students to get vocal and self‐explain what they've learned, and you can transform your classroom in six minutes a day with a relatively light lift.

You'll recall my love of the number six. For me, it all comes down to a 1956 publication by psychologist Benjamin Bloom titled Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. If you've spent more than five (or six) minutes in the field of education, you are likely already familiar with Bloom's conceptual framework. There are six major categories: (1) Knowledge, (2) Comprehension, (3) Application, (4) Analysis, (5) Synthesis, and (6) Evaluation.

When I introduce Bloom's Taxonomy to my middle schoolers, I explain that the first level of thinking demands uniform answers. Base‐level questions all have one correct response. “What is the capital of Massachusetts?” Boston. “What is the sum of two plus two?” Four. Meanwhile, higher tiers can yield any number of responses. “Imagine if the villain defeated the hero in the final chapter.” Or “Create a script that brings to life the account of a primary source.” In other words, Knowledge tasks require a “right” answer, free of debate, whereas Evaluation tasks merit infinite opinions.

In 2001, one of Bloom's former students, Lorin Anderson, revised the taxonomy to suit the modern age of learning. Don't worry, there are still six categories in Anderson's revamp. Today's version of the Taxonomy includes the categories: (1) Remember, (2) Understand, (3) Apply, (4) Analyze, (5) Evaluate, and (6) Create.

General education teachers, special education teachers, teachers of English language learners, and everyone else (present company most definitely included) have made the mistake at some point of thinking that the lowest levels of the taxonomy can be bypassed in favor of higher‐order thinking. Why should we focus on the facts, which just require memorization? Let's get right to the fun and creative stuff. But the literature on learning tells us that a solid mastery of the facts is precisely what students need if they are going to learn to engage in activities like applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. One educational writer, Ian Leslie, refers to facts and information as the “hidden power” of our thinking: the more facts you have at your disposal, the more deeply you can think about them. If you skip the ABCs or the basic rules of grammar, you probably aren't going to cultivate the next great American novelist in your classroom.

In the age of Google, skipping the basics can be tempting to students and educators. A decade ago, I became the first English teacher in my district to pilot a one‐to‐one iPad initiative. I remember feeling defeated at the end of the year when I asked students to complete a survey about their experience. One eighth‐grader wrote, “I like having my iPad in class because instead of asking the teacher questions, I can just Google the answers.” I felt as if I had been replaced. I was no longer the keeper of knowledge; I had become an accessory. As is the case in many modern professions, I was learning to augment the work of a powerful machine.

I came to understand that with Google at their fingertips, my students could rise through the ranks of Bloom's Taxonomy more quickly. But, access to limitless information did not mean I could dismiss exercises in Bloom's Level 1: “Remembering” and Level 2: “Understanding,” nor did it make them any less important. Far from it. My students still needed to put in the time and energy to master basic information if I wanted them to progress into deeper levels of learning.

Education scholar Mark Bauerlein warns against lower‐ed's fervor to reach higher‐order thinking skills, such as analysis and evaluation, right away. In his research, he observed many teachers obsessing over making students analyze text features rather than helping them comprehend content. “They regard the emphasis on knowledge at the elementary level as a soul‐killing boot camp of memorizing facts” (Bauerlein, 2020). But without a core knowledge competency, Bauerlein argues, critical thinking becomes nearly impossible. Students begin to see the results of their Google searches in total isolation. Mastering knowledge opens pathways for the analysis and creative thinking that lives at the highest echelons of Bloom's Taxonomy. Without factual knowledge, reasoning and problem solving have nothing to cling to.

As a simple illustration of the correspondence between facts and thinking, consider the example of a jazz musician building a performance in real‐time, improvising based on the decisions of the other players. We might think of a jazz musician, with precise pitch and natural rhythm, as someone who is an adept and creative thinker. But, if she were to listen back to her performances, she could likely pick out specific notes, melodic contrasts, and so on. More importantly, the musician's gradual mastery of her instrument over the course of years of study and practice, enables her to take what she encounters throughout the performance and imbue it with deep meaning by making connections to previous jazz performances and preparing her for critical thinking during her next song.

The same is true of our kids. If I ask my seventh‐grade English class to conduct a critical analysis of a Langston Hughes poem, the students with a contextual understanding of the Harlem Renaissance will outperform those who have simply googled the poet's bio. We need to store facts in our memories if we want to climb the rungs of Bloom's Taxonomy. Skipping steps will eventually result in a grave tumble from Bloom's proverbial ladder.

In an age of limitless access to information, students often hold biases or misconceptions about the science of their own learning. Memorization does not come naturally to most young people. When tasked with studying for a vocabulary quiz, how do most students respond? They Google the definitions, then they make flashcards, and finally, they commit the words to memory a night ahead of their assessment. Students who study this way might perform well on an assessment, but it's unlikely they will commit the words to long‐term memory for future application.

Understandably, most teachers prefer to devote their time and energy to the highest tiers of Bloom's Taxonomy—naturally, the higher levels are more stimulating for both teachers and students. Regardless, the Taxonomy will crumble beneath our students' feet if there is no foundation. Short and simple adjustments to practice can allow students to improve their own recall, making way for deeper engagement with the meaningful and complex learning tasks, which we fully consider in Parts II and III.