Table of Contents
- Depth and Complexity Icons
- Content Imperatives
- Depth and Complexity Activities
- Think Like A Disciplinarian
- Universal Themes
Depth and Complexity Icons
- Depth and Complexity: 📈 Trends
Students learn to analyze content to find trends.
- Depth and Complexity: 👄 Language of the Discipline
Depth and Complexity prompt: language of the discipline. Learn the specialized vocabulary that experts use when talking about a topic.
- Depth and Complexity: ❓ Unanswered Questions
Students will learn to focus their thinking on the unknowns within a topic.
- Depth and Complexity: ⚖️ Ethics
Students will learn how to think through the lens of ⚖️ Ethics.
- Depth and Complexity: 🚦 Rules
Students will learn to analyze a topic and look for rules.
- Depth and Complexity: 🏛️ Big Idea
In this video, we’ll introduce the 🏠 Big Idea prompt of depth and complexity.
- Depth and Complexity: 📚 Across Disciplines
Depth and Complexity prompt: across disciplines. Find connections between your topic and other fields — no topic is an island.
- Depth and Complexity: ⏳ Change Over Time
Depth and Complexity prompt: change over time. How has a topic changed, and where might it be heading?
- Depth and Complexity: 👓 Multiple Perspectives
Depth and Complexity prompt: multiple perspectives. Look at a topic through different eyes — who sees it differently, and why?
- Depth and Complexity: Patterns
Students will learn to analyze information and uncover patterns (and broken patterns).
- Depth and Complexity: 🌻 Details
Students will learn to work with the depth and complexity prompt 🌻 Details.
Content Imperatives
- Content Imperatives: Paradox
Use ↔️ Paradox to introduce students to the idea that something can be wrong and right or true and false at the same time.
- Content Imperatives: Convergence
With 🔄 Convergence, students are looking at how multiple ideas come together and interact.
- Content Imperatives: Parallel
With ⏸️ Parallel, students will think broadly, looking for similarities to topics across content areas.
- Content Imperatives: Contribuition
With ⏬ Contribution, we’re asking students to look at how a single factor impacts the topic.
- Content Imperatives: Origin
With ⏺️ Origin, we are focusing students back to the beginning of a topic or idea.
Depth and Complexity Activities
- Analyze Character Change
Students explain how a character changes, using thoughts, actions, and words.
Show 3 Steps
Students find thoughts, actions, and words from the beginning of a story and name the character’s main trait.
Students find details from the end of the story and name the character’s new main trait.
Students decide whether the character’s details form a neat system or a messy one.
- Student Introductions With Depth, Complexity, and Frames: Level Two
Students will examine their classmates frames, note patterns, form an opinion, and then think from two more perspectives!
Show 3 Steps
Students tour the classroom, examining classmates’ frames and identifying one prompt of depth and complexity to focus on.
Students choose categories of rules based on specific criteria and determine which category is the most important to them.
Students pick two perspectives—one agreeing and one disagreeing—with their answer, then write what each might say.
- Upgrade Research Questions With Depth and Complexity
Students upgrade their bland research questions using prompts of depth and complexity and then create a sequence of questions using concepts from Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Show 3 Steps
Students pick a topic and create 3 – 5 questions.
They upgrade those questions by adding in a prompt of depth and complexity.
Students create a sequence of questions by comparing their topic to another related topic to deepen their understanding.
- Student Introductions with Complexity and Frames
Students will use Change Over Time or Multiple Perspectives to look at themselves in new ways.
Show 3 Steps
Students create a frame about themselves by selecting different perspectives and identifying tools to describe their thoughts.
Students use the change over time tool to identify and describe important moments from different stages in their lives.
Students look for big patterns in their frames that connect their thoughts across different perspectives and time periods.
- Student Introductions With Depth and Frames
Students will introduce themselves using any four of the elements of Depth on the Frame graphic organizer.
Show 9 Steps
First, students will draw out their frame.
Students write their big idea in a complete sentence and include the symbol to represent it in their frames.
Students use each of these four prompts to write about specific traits.
Optionally, you can have them make a second frame later if you’d like to use all eight prompts.
Students write down three important rules they follow using complete sentences and include a rule symbol in their frame.
Students add the trends icon to their frame and write about personal changes from the past school year.
Students write words or phrases that represent who they are, using the lips symbol for Language of the Discipline.
Students identify patterns in their routines that contribute to their success and discuss patterns they have broken.
Students write interesting unanswered questions about themselves using three question marks to symbolize curiosity and future possibilities.
- Analyze Character Change with Depth and Complexity
Students collect details from the beginning and the end of a story to name how a character’s main trait changes, then prove that change in a paragraph.
Show 3 Steps
Students find four details from the beginning of the story and name the character’s main trait.
Students collect four details from the end, name the new trait, and decide whether that change caused other changes.
Students turn the organizer into a paragraph with a claim, evidence from both ends, and a closing sentence.
Think Like A Disciplinarian
- Think Like An Author: Hemingway vs Dickens
Students will study the styles of Dickens and Hemingway and then try to write like them.
Show 4 Steps
Students analyze opening sentences by Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemingway to identify differences in their writing styles.
Next, they’ll re-write Dickens in Hemingway’s style.
Now, they re-write Hemingway using Dickens’ style.
I share my final example.
- Think Like A Historian
Students will note how two events are connected through their causes and effects.
Show 2 Steps
Students identify unresolved problems as effects of historical events using a graphic organizer to visualize their findings.
Now, they’ll note how those effects from the first event can be causes of later events.
- Think Like A Philosopher
Students will practice thinking from the point of view of famous philosophers as they analyze characters and figures from history.
Show 4 Steps
Students begin with Socrates’ belief: ignorance was the root of problems and education was the key to solving ignorance.
Next, they practice with Aristotles’ philosophy that problems come from unbalanced relationships
Then they’ll think like Descartes who believed that we should always begin by doubting things.
Students discuss how Confucius would respond to stories and characters based on his beliefs about family and responsibility.
- Think Like An Economist
Students will learn to spot limited, valuable resources in any situation.
Show 3 Steps
Students put on their economist glasses and discuss wealth and inequality in different situations like Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
Students discuss solutions to wealth problems in different situations and consider the potential new issues that those solutions create.
Students analyze a topic in school by thinking like economists, identifying problems and potential solutions related to that topic.
Universal Themes
- Systems’ Power Can Be Spread Out or Focused
Students collect examples of systems with spread-out power and systems with focused power, then invent better names for the two categories.
Show 3 Steps
See how a traffic jam and the English language run with no one in charge, then brainstorm systems with spread-out power.
Compare those to an orchestra’s conductor and a grocery store’s automatic doors, then brainstorm systems with focused power.
Give the two columns better names than “spread out” and “focused” and post the best ideas.
- Systems Can Become Other Systems
Students remove one part from a system and name what the system became.
Show 2 Steps
Students pick a system, list its parts, remove one, and name what it turned into.
Students propose systems that fall apart if any part is removed, and the class agrees which ones hold up.
- Change can be positive and negative
Students map a change’s positive and negative effects, then test whether that is always true.
Show 2 Steps
Students map a change’s positive and negative effects.
Students test whether a change can be only positive or only negative.
- Power and Symbols (Primary)
Students try to draw a symbol for an idea that has no symbol.
Show 3 Steps
The class names symbols that communicate an idea without words.
Students try to draw a symbol for maybe, a promise, and forgiveness.
The class says when a symbol works better than words, and when words work better.
- Invisible Power Can Have Visible Effects (Primary)
Students infer invisible powers from visible effects, then brainstorm visible effects caused by invisible powers.
Show 2 Steps
Use four visible clues to identify the invisible powers causing them.
Choose examples of invisible power and brainstorm their visible effects.
- Power Can Be Visible or Invisible (Primary)
Sort examples of power into visible and invisible, then argue which kind is more powerful.
Show 3 Steps
Brainstorm visible and invisible power in four scenes: the sun, a forest, a dam, and a storm.
Compare with the example answers, then add power from home, sports, movies, and video games.
Agree or disagree: invisible power is more powerful than visible power.
- Introducing Systems
Students will test a big idea about systems against their own examples, then rewrite it.
Show 3 Steps
Students brainstorm examples of systems with their class.
They test “systems need all of their parts in order to work” by sorting every example into two columns.
They name the two groups based on patterns they notice, then rewrite the big idea.
- Introducing Power (Primary)
Brainstorm examples of power, group them into your own categories, and write a big idea about what power can be.
Show 3 Steps
Brainstorm as many examples of power as you can.
Group your examples into small categories.
Label your groups, then write your big idea about power.
- Depth and Complexity Frame Intro: Power
Students map where they have power, and where others have power over them.
Show 2 Steps
Draw yourself in the middle of the frame, then fill in all four sections: where you have power and where others have power over you.
Hunt for the shift: what power has already moved to you, what is coming next, and whether people can lose power over time.
- Depth and Complexity Frame Intro: Power (Primary)
Students fill out a frame about themselves, then find their biggest and smallest powers.
Show 3 Steps
Students fill the Details and Rules sections of the frame with small facts about themselves and things they always do.
Students add the words they say all the time, then sum themselves up with one Big Idea word.
Students hunt through their finished frame for their biggest and smallest examples of power.
- Depth and Complexity Frame Intro: Change
Students fill a before-and-now frame about themselves.
Show 3 Steps
Fill each section of the frame with pairs — what it used to be, what it is now — with Scrooge as the model.
Mark each change I for intentional or U for unintentional, then circle your biggest change.
Decide whether that change will stay the same, change course, or completely reverse, then explain your thinking.
- Depth and Complexity Frame Intro: Systems
Students treat themselves as a system and ask what would change without them.
Show 3 Steps
Fill each section of the frame — details, patterns, language, and rules — with Charlotte as the model.
Draw arrows to show how the parts of your frame affect each other.
List three bigger systems you belong to, then explain how one would change if you weren’t part of it.
- Depth and Complexity Frame Intro: Order
Students fill a frame about order and chaos in their lives.
Show 3 Steps
Fill each section of the frame — roles, patterns, rules, and difficult decisions — with Willy Wonka as the model.
Underline the one thing in each section that brings the most order to your life.
Pick a big idea about order and chaos (or write your own) and explain how it’s true for you.
- Order and Chaos: Recipe or Instinct?
Two cooks make the same dinner. One follows the recipe to the exact gram. The other just throws things in by feel. Whose food turns out better — the ordered cook or the chaotic cook?
- Order and Chaos: The Perfect Heartbeat
A heartbeat sounds steady, but a perfectly regular one is a warning sign — healthy hearts speed up and slow down a little. Is a healthy heart ordered or chaotic?
- Order and Chaos: The Shuffle
Students decide whether a card shuffle creates order or chaos.
Show 3 Steps
Students watch the shuffle, then write: is it order or chaos?
Students hear two classmates’ answers, then list other orderly actions that make something random.
Students name this type of chaos and explain why we need it instead of pure chaos.
- Order and Chaos: No Traffic Lights
One town runs its intersections with signals. Another has no lights at all — drivers just work it out. Which town’s traffic is more orderly?
- Order and Chaos: The Snowflake
Students decide whether a snowflake is order or chaos.
Show 3 Steps
Students learn the six-sided rule, then write: is a snowflake order or chaos?
Students hear two classmates’ answers, then list other things that follow a strict rule but turn out different every time.
Students decide: is nature mostly chaos, or mostly order?
- Systems: Grandpa’s Axe
Grandpa’s axe broke, so he put on a new head. Years later the handle cracked, so he replaced that too. Now no original piece is left. Is it still the same axe, or a new one?
- Systems: The Thermostat
A thermostat fights to keep a room the same — open a window and it just cranks the heat to undo you. In a system that pushes back like that, can you ever really change just one thing?
- Systems: Watch vs. Forest
A watch stops dead if one tiny gear breaks. A forest can lose a whole species and barely notice. Which is the better-built system — the one where every part matters, or the one where no part is essential?
- Systems: The Traffic Jam
Picture a jam where no one crashed and no one even stopped on purpose — everyone crawls for an hour, then it clears for no reason. Did anyone actually cause this traffic jam?
- Systems: Pull One Thread
A sweater is really one long thread looped a thousand times. Pull the right loose end and the whole thing unravels in seconds. So is a system like that strong or fragile?
- Change: The Caterpillar’s Bargain
To become a butterfly, a caterpillar doesn’t just sprout wings — inside the cocoon it dissolves into liquid first, almost nothing left, then rebuilds. Would you trade everything you are now to become something far greater?
- Change: The Sealed Jar
You love a flower so much you seal it in a jar to keep it exactly as it is, forever. A month later it’s brown and crumbling. Did sealing it stop the change, or just hide it?
- Change: The Tree’s Scar
A nail got hammered into a young tree. The tree didn’t push it out — it grew around it, sealing the nail inside a knot of new wood. Was that change the tree healing, or the tree getting damaged?
- Change: One Domino
You nudge one domino. It tips the next, which tips two more, which tip four, until a thousand have fallen. Did you cause one change, or a thousand?
- Change: Canyon vs. Earthquake
Students place examples of change on a slow-to-fast continuum, then reconsider one from another perspective.
Show 2 Steps
Students place examples of change on a class slow-to-fast continuum.
Students reconsider one change from another perspective and add a connected note.
- 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.
- Order to Chaos: Dominoes or Dam?
Sometimes outside forces turn order into chaos. But sometimes chaos comes from within.
- Order and Chaos Hide Inside Each Other
Chaos can contain order. Order can contain chaos! Is chaos ever truly random?
- Chaos Can Be Positive or Negative
Students will write a big idea explaining when order is better and when chaos is better.
Show 3 Steps
Students will choose five related topics and write about when order is better and when chaos is better.
Then, they rank the five topics from most chaotic to most orderly.
Then they write a big idea, summing up their findings about when order or chaos is better.
- Introducing Order and Chaos
Students will categorize examples of Order as “written” or “unwritten.”
Show 3 Steps
Students brainstorm examples of order from all areas of life.
They categorize each example as “written” or “unwritten” order.
They pick an important unwritten school rule and formalize it, designing a poster to display.
- Power and Traditions
We compare the power of traditions shared by millions with smaller traditions shared by perhaps just one family.
- Power in Autumn
Autumn was once powerful because of the harvest. What gives Fall its power now?
- Power and Symbols
Students name an idea that no symbol can carry and explain why it needs words.
Show 3 Steps
Students list symbols that communicate an idea fast, without words.
Students pick a logo and find out what it was designed to mean.
Students name an idea that cannot become a symbol and explain why it needs words.
- Who has more power: the Queen Bee or the Hive?
Weigh whether power sits with the one or the many — the queen bee or the hive — then judge three students’ answers by inventing your own award.
Show 2 Steps
Students compare the power of the queen bee to that of the whole hive working together.
Students read three sample answers, then invent an award with real criteria and choose a winner.
- Indirect Power – Lighthouse vs Magnetism
Students explore the idea of indirect power – which can be both visible (a lighthouse) or invisible (magnetism).
- Power – Blue Whale vs Krill
Sure, a Blue Whale is huge. But does a tiny krill have more power?
- Power Big Idea Worksheets
Using these worksheets, students will prove statements about Power across content areas.
- Power Can Be Fast, Slow, Loud, or Quiet
Students will group examples of power based on how fast, slow, loud, and quiet they are.
Show 3 Steps
First, students will brainstorm fast and slow examples of power using four scenes.
Next, they will categorize those same examples as loud or quiet.
Finally, they will group examples into four categories and then add new ideas they think of.
- Power can be Visible or Invisible
Students will decide if invisible things can be more powerful than visible things.
Show 3 Steps
Students will brainstorm visible and invisible power based on four scenes.
Next, they continue their brainstorm, this time bringing in any examples they can think of.
Finally, they agree or disagree with this statement: “Invisible power is more powerful than visible power.”
- Introducing Universal Theme of Conflict
Students will categorize examples of “conflict”, create a big idea about conflict, and then support that big idea with new examples.
Show 5 Steps
Students brainstorm examples of conflict in pairs, generating as many ideas as possible without stopping to explain them.
Next, individually or in small groups, students start to group those examples into 3 – 5 categories.
Now, students move their categories into a new graphic organizer and label the categories with 1 – 3 word labels.
Then, they create a big idea statement about the universal theme using at least some of their labels.
Finally, students can look for examples across different areas or subjects that support this new big idea they created.
- Introducing Universal Theme of Change
Students will categorize examples of “change”, create a big idea about change, and then support that big idea with new examples.
Show 4 Steps
Students brainstorm examples of change while sharing ideas with classmates to generate a wide variety of responses.
Next, individually or in small groups, students start to group those examples into 3 – 5 categories.
Now, students move their categories into a new graphic organizer and label the categories with 1 – 3 word labels.
Then, they create a big idea statement about the universal theme using at least some of their labels.
- Introducing Universal Theme of Systems
Students will categorize examples of systems, create a big idea about systems, and then support that big idea with new examples.
Show 4 Steps
Students brainstorm examples of systems with classmates to generate a variety of ideas that show how parts work together.
Next, individually or in small groups, students start to group those examples into 3 – 5 categories.
Now, students move their categories into a new graphic organizer and label the categories with 1 – 3 word labels.
Then, they create a big idea statement about the universal theme using at least some of their labels.
- Introducing Universal Theme of Power
Students will categorize examples of Power, create a big idea about power, and then support that big idea with new examples.
Show 4 Steps
Students brainstorm and write down as many examples of power as they can, sharing ideas with classmates for inspiration.
Next, individually or in small groups, students start to group those examples into 3 – 5 categories.
Now, students move their categories into a new graphic organizer and label the categories with 1 – 3 word labels.
Then, they create a big idea statement about “power” using at least some of their labels.
- Change Leads to More Change
Students will apply the statement, “Change leads to more change” to multiple topics.
Show 1 Steps
First, students explore how one change can lead to many other changes by sharing examples and using a graphic organizer.
- Order Can Be Natural or Constructed
Students will consider which examples of order are natural and which are constructed.
Show 3 Steps
First, students think of examples of order that is either natural or constructed by people.
Then, they consider three specific examples of order: addition, families, and the English language.
Finally, they create a spectrum and place their examples based on how natural and how constructed each example is.
- Problems Lead to New Rules, Which Lead to New Problems
Students will become familiar with the statement, “Problems Lead to New Rules, Which Lead to New Problems.”
Show 1 Steps
First, students brainstorm examples of how solving one problem can create new problems and lead to more rules.
- Systems Are Made up of Other Systems
Students will become familiar with the generalization “Systems Are Made up of Other Systems.”
Show 1 Steps
First, students will create graphic organizers to explore and identify systems made up of smaller systems in various contexts.
- Invisible Power Can Have Visible Effects
Students will become familiar with the statement, “Power can be unseen, but its effects are always visible.”
Show 3 Steps
Students list examples of how invisible power has visible effects.
They note which effects are positive and which are negative.
Then they rank the invisible power based on how positive or negative the effects are.