Different content may be necessary for students with different levels of skill. However at the end of the lesson all students should have a similar understanding of the concept, taking into consideration the level at which they are working.
This will involve close scrutiny of the materials to be taught. Many school programs now in use especially at the junior and senior-level, rely heavily on the teaching of content. The difficulty with teaching excessive content is that many students who could successfully grasp the overall concept cannot master all the content. There is a need to clarify the difference between the underlying concepts and the content which is used to develop these concepts.
Imagine a traditional lesson on conflict within a story taught at the junior or senior high school level. Students are generally expected to recognize specific types of liteary conflict. This is evaluated by having them read a particular story or novel with the aim of identifying examples of conflict. It is easy to imagine the difficulty experienced by students working at a reading level below that of the reading material. The difficulty is not in understanding the concept of conflict but in reading the material in order to complete the assignment. By placing emphasis on the ability to read and write without allowing other means for demonstrating learning or illustrating knowledge of conflict, students are “handicapped” by the structure.
Instead of expecting all students to know the types of literary conflict and read all the material, the teacher can approach this concept in a broader sense. If the teacher were to concentrate on acquainting all students with an understanding of conflict and have them identify the types through examples in real life, the types could later he related to a particular novel or short story. This would allow all students to be involved in the concept while variations are made in the assignments to accommodate different levels of skill.
