← Back to all of your playlists

Playlist: Bookmarks

What’s In My Brain: Narwhal vs Penguin

We’re looking at the arctic vs the antarctic.

Idiom Tasks

Four fantastically terrific tasks for a weekly idiom study.

From Summary to Synthesis

For Teachers

Here’s how you can move from merely “summarizing a text” to a high-level task that culminates in synthesis.

Creativity Beyond The Fluff

For Teachers

Just because a task is “creative” doesn’t mean students are at the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

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.

My Top 5 Depth and Complexity Mistakes

For Teachers

I spent about a decade making some pretty major mistakes in my use of depth and complexity.

Analyze Characters Using Philosophy

What is the Brick Pig’s philosophy? How would he apply it to the characters in Harry Potter?

Writing Differentiated Lesson Objectives

For Teachers

My early lessons didn’t even have objectives, let alone good objectives! Here’s how to build four-part, differentiated lesson objectives.

Thinking With Art: Head Down

One artist, two paintings. Notice details, compare, synthesize, then find a parallel in another creator’s work.

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.

Punctuation Power

In a sentence, punctuation may seem meek when compared to those mighty words, but punctuation has incredible power over the meaning of a sentence. Students will try re-punctuating sentences to find new meanings – without changing a single word!

Depth and Complexity – An Introduction for Teachers

For Teachers

Depth and Complexity is the most powerful framework most teachers have never heard of. Here’s what it actually is — and isn’t.

Asking Questions That Make Students Think

For Teachers

Most classroom questions test memory. These questions test thinking. There’s a difference — and your students will feel it.

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!

The Resiliency Tournament

Your students will set up a tournament to determine which person or character best demonstrated resiliency.

Showing A Character’s Trait

We tell students to ‘show, not tell’ — but that advice is useless until they experience the difference. This lesson makes it click.

Climbing Bloom’s with Depth and Complexity

For Teachers

Bloom’s tells you how high to aim. Depth and Complexity tells you where to look. Combine them and things get interesting.

Depth and Complexity: 🏛️ Big Idea

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

Differentiate With Frames Across Disciplines

For Teachers

One topic, four angles. The Frame graphic organizer gives every student a different way in — without you creating four different lessons.

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.

Create A Civilization Introduction

Your students build a civilization from scratch — rivers, flags, calendars, currency, government. Social studies, science, and writing woven into one year-long project.

Creating A Realistic Flower and Pollinator

Your students will create a new flower, designed to attract a specific pollinator.

Historic Social Media

How would people from history have interacted online? Students will develop a conversation online between people involved in the same event from history.

“Its Big Day” – A Children’s Story About Its and It’s

Let’s spice up a typically dull lesson about the difference between “its” and “it’s” by asking students to write a children’s story about the adventures of a critter named It.

Literary Technique: Juxtaposition

Put a grumpy character next to a joyful one and they make each other stand out even more. Opposites are powerful!

Create A Creature

Create a new creature based on the adaptations of existing creatures from the same biome.

Response to Lit: An Inductive Approach

For Teachers

Here’s how one teacher uses inductive thinking to help students respond to literature.

Engineering: Build A Bridge

Using real bridges as their starting point, students will construct bridges out of straws and paperclips.

Add Layers To Direct Instruction

For Teachers

Take direction instruction beyond a monotonous practice of the same skill over and over.