Depth and Complexity

Let’s get students thinking big and focusing on more abstract ideas.

Get kids focusing on the small, but essential, details of a topic.

Want to add drama to any topic? Use the Ethics prompt!

In this video, we introduce the 👓 Multiple Perspectives prompt of Depth and Complexity.

Can your students spot anything that repeats? Or that has stopped repeating?

So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Power? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.

So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Systems? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.

So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Change? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.

So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Conflict? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.

Sometimes power is concentrated in one place. Other times it is spread out.

Take students back to the beginning by using the Content Imperative ⏺️ Origin.

Ask students to consider how a specific factor is affecting (or ⏬ Contributing) to a topic.

Add complexity by considering how multiple factors 🔄 Converge within one topic.

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!

Get students thinking broadly by exploring similarities across multiple topics. Combine with Depth and Complexity for bonus points!

Once students know the prompts of Depth and Complexity, let’s take them much higher up Bloom’s Taxonomy.

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.

Students will introduce themselves by showing how they’ve changed over time.

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!

Your students will use Depth and Complexity to note how a character’s main trait changes across a story.

What if your students rewrote Dickens in the style of Hemingway and vice versa?

Here’s how effects be causes and causes can be effects!

What would Socrates have thought if he watched Frozen?

How would an economist read Goldilocks? How would they see a rainforest? How would they study the American Revolution?