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Depth and Complexity Icons

Lessons and activities you can use today that build on the Depth and Complexity Icons! Introduce the icons to your students. But also learn to integrate them into your lessons.

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Depth and Complexity: 🏛️ Big Idea
Depth and Complexity: 🏛️ Big Idea
Let’s get students thinking big and focusing on more abstract ideas.
Depth and Complexity: 🌻 Details
Depth and Complexity: 🌻 Details
Get kids focusing on the small, but essential, details of a topic.
Depth and Complexity: ⚖️ Ethics
Depth and Complexity: ⚖️ Ethics
Want to add drama to any topic? Use the Ethics prompt!
Student Introductions With Depth and Frames
Student Introductions With Depth and Frames
Want to introduce the tools of Depth and Complexity and learn more about your students and introduce the Frame graphic organizer? Have I got the activity for you!
Upgrade Research Questions With Depth and Complexity
Upgrade Research Questions With Depth and Complexity
Ever ask students to create research questions? Were their ideas a bit… blah? My own students had a very hard time writing questions they didn’t already know the answer to! This video is how I solved that problem: upgrade research questions with depth and complexity.
Content Imperatives: Contribuition
Content Imperatives: Contribuition
Pull on one thread and watch the whole topic move. Contribution asks: what single factor is quietly shaping everything else?
Depth and Complexity: ⏳ Change Over Time
Depth and Complexity: ⏳ Change Over Time
Want to get students thinking about how a topic has changed or might change in the future? The ⏳ Change Over Time thinking tool is just what you need!
Student Introductions With Depth, Complexity, and Frames: Level Two
Student Introductions With Depth, Complexity, and Frames: Level Two
Once students know the prompts of Depth and Complexity, let’s take them much higher up Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Power – Blue Whale vs Krill
Power – Blue Whale vs Krill
Sure, a Blue Whale is huge. But does a tiny krill have more power?
Generalization: Change Leads to More Change
Generalization: Change Leads to More Change
Can you think of a time in your life when “Change lead to more change?”
Student Introductions with Complexity and Frames
Student Introductions with Complexity and Frames
How have you changed over time? Students introduce themselves through the lens of change — and learn a Depth and Complexity tool in the process.
Generalization: Problems Lead to New Rules, Which Lead to New Problems
Generalization: Problems Lead to New Rules, Which Lead to New Problems
Problems create rules. Rules create new problems. Can you trace the cycle in history, stories, and your own life?
Think Like An Author: Hemingway vs Dickens
Think Like An Author: Hemingway vs Dickens
What if your students rewrote Dickens in the style of Hemingway and vice versa?
Content Imperatives: Parallel
Content Imperatives: Parallel
Get students thinking broadly by exploring similarities across multiple topics. Combine with Depth and Complexity for bonus points!
Depth and Complexity: 📈 Trends
Depth and Complexity: 📈 Trends
Has something been changing recently? What might be causing that? What are the effects?
Think Like An Economist
Think Like An Economist
How would an economist read Goldilocks? How would they see a rainforest? How would they study the American Revolution?
Power and Traditions
Power and Traditions
We compare the power of traditions shared by millions with smaller traditions shared by perhaps just one family.
Generalization: Systems Are Made up of Other Systems
Generalization: Systems Are Made up of Other Systems
A clock is a system. So is a rainforest. So is your school. Once you see systems inside systems, you can’t unsee it.
Think Like A Historian
Think Like A Historian
Here’s how effects be causes and causes can be effects!
Introducing Order and Chaos
Introducing Order and Chaos
Introduce Order by exploring “written” vs “unwritten” rules.
Indirect Power – Lighthouse vs Magnetism
Indirect Power – Lighthouse vs Magnetism
Students explore the idea of indirect power – which can be both visible (a lighthouse) or invisible (magnetism).
Order and Chaos Hide Inside Each Other
Order and Chaos Hide Inside Each Other
Chaos can contain order. Order can contain chaos! Is chaos ever truly random?
Invisible Power Can Have Visible Effects
Invisible Power Can Have Visible Effects
Can you think of times when power is unseen, but we can clearly see its effects?
Content Imperatives: Origin
Content Imperatives: Origin
Take students back to the beginning by using the Content Imperative ⏺️ Origin.
Order Can Be Natural or Constructed
Order Can Be Natural or Constructed
When is order natural and when is it designed by people?
Introducing Universal Theme of Conflict
Introducing Universal Theme of Conflict
So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Conflict? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.
Introducing Universal Theme of Systems
Introducing Universal Theme of Systems
So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Systems? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.
Think Like A Philosopher
Think Like A Philosopher
What would Socrates have thought if he watched Frozen?
Analyze Character Change with Depth and Complexity
Analyze Character Change with Depth and Complexity
Your students will use Depth and Complexity to note how a character’s main trait changes across a story.
Who has more power: the Queen Bee or the Hive?
Who has more power: the Queen Bee or the Hive?
Sometimes power is concentrated in one place. Other times it is spread out.
Depth and Complexity: 📚 Across Disciplines
Depth and Complexity: 📚 Across Disciplines
No topic is an island! With the 📚 Across Disciplines prompt, students note connections within and across multiple fields.
Depth and Complexity: 👓 Multiple Perspectives
Depth and Complexity: 👓 Multiple Perspectives
Every topic looks different depending on who’s looking. This prompt teaches students to see through someone else’s eyes.
Power can be Visible or Invisible
Power can be Visible or Invisible
What are examples of unseen Power? And can invisible power be more powerful than visible power?
Introducing Universal Theme of Power
Introducing Universal Theme of Power
So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Power? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.
Power and Symbols
Power and Symbols
When does a simple symbol have more power than a word?
Depth and Complexity: ❓ Unanswered Questions
Depth and Complexity: ❓ Unanswered Questions
This underutilized tool focuses students on what we don’t yet know and even what we can’t know.
Introducing Universal Theme of Change
Introducing Universal Theme of Change
Everything changes. But how does it change? Students brainstorm dozens of examples and boil them down to one big idea.
Content Imperatives: Paradox
Content Imperatives: Paradox
How can one idea pull in opposite directions, being both true and false or right and wrong at the same time? It’s time to explore Paradoxes!
Content Imperatives: Convergence
Content Imperatives: Convergence
Add complexity by considering how multiple factors 🔄 Converge within one topic.
Chaos Makes Sense (Later)
Chaos Makes Sense (Later)
In the moment, a chaotic event makes no sense. But later, that same event can feel like it was part of a larger story.
Depth and Complexity: 🚦 Rules
Depth and Complexity: 🚦 Rules
Is there a consequence for not doing something? You may have found a rule!
Chaos Can Be Positive or Negative
Chaos Can Be Positive or Negative
Sometimes we want order, but sometimes we need chaos!
Order to Chaos: Dominoes or Dam?
Order to Chaos: Dominoes or Dam?
Sometimes outside forces turn order into chaos. But sometimes chaos comes from within.
Depth and Complexity: Patterns
Depth and Complexity: Patterns
Can your students spot anything that repeats? Or that has stopped repeating?
Power Can Be Fast, Slow, Loud, or Quiet
Power Can Be Fast, Slow, Loud, or Quiet
Power may seem loud and fast, but it can also be slow and quiet.
Power Big Idea Worksheets
Power Big Idea Worksheets
Your students will investigate statements like: Power leads to change, Power comes in many forms, Power can be used or abused.
Power in Autumn
Power in Autumn
Autumn was once powerful because of the harvest. What gives Fall its power now?
Depth and Complexity: 👄 Language of the Discipline
Depth and Complexity: 👄 Language of the Discipline
Imagine a construction worker who doesn’t know the name of a screwdriver or a doctor who can’t remember what to call your neck. It’s pretty hard to communicate well without knowing the 👄 Language of the Discipline!