Big Ideas

***The Elements of Depth & Complexity are, to put it simply, a framing tool for creating critical writing prompts. Each Element is paired with an Icon. Drawing and/or memorizing the Icon is secondary to the actual USE of the Element to create better questions. When students learn what each Element means, they can start creating prompts for themselves, saving the teacher a lot of time.

The purpose of this Element is to focus students on parallels between the themes in the topic at hand and major themes in life. Students are asked to explain the deeper social, political, personal, philosophical, or scientific significance of the topic. Students will map their learning to struggles or major events in real life, moral(s) in the story and personal reflections in the real world, author's purpose or intent, parallels or symbolic/metaphorical comparisons to real-life themes such as love, war, crisis, existence, etc.

Prompts may include:

  • An explanation of the main idea of the topic or story and why this theme, moral, or main idea is so important
  • Finding a word, phrase, sentence, and/or paragraph that describes the Big Idea of the topic, and then explaining why each word, phrase, and sentence was chosen
  • Describing how Big Ideas of this story fit in with current events or major themes in life.

Social Studies

  1. Create a timeline to describe what the material in this unit is building up to as an overall concept. Make a prediction about what major event will happen next, and predict the date that it will happen on your timeline.
  2. What four nouns (people, places, or things) would you hold most responsible for making these events occur? Why?
  3. What facts strongly support the conclusions made in this text?
  4. What three alternatives could ______________ (historical figure) have done differently to prevent _____________ (historical tragedy/war) from happening?
  5. What can we learn from the causes of this war to prevent a similar situation from breaking out in the future?
  6. Who served to benefit from _______________ (historical tragedy/war), and why? What are the moral implications of this profiteering?

English

  1. Create a visual mnemonic that teaches this concept. It can be a new take on an old mnemonic. Demonstrate your mnemonic with a poster or in a video.
  2. Record an interview an author, editor, college English professor, or AP English teacher about how this topic is connected to English at their level. Share your findings with the class.
  3. What is the material in this unit building up to? Use a graphic organizer to explain how the pieces of what you are learning come together as an overall concept.
  4. Imagine that you had been able to skip grades from 5th grade all the way to this class. Create a road map of vital information to help your younger self get caught up easily as possible. In other words, what would you teach yourself, how would you teach it, and in what order?
  5. Think about the last 5 topics you learned in English. Without looking ahead, make a prediction about where you think these concepts are leading. Using your prediction, write a test question that you expect to see on the final exam.

Math

  1. List all of the mathematical ideas that you had to understand before you could learn this topic.
  2. Make a colorful poster that demonstrates a general proof of why this concept works.
  3. Create an illustrated booklet of math properties that you can add to when you are surprised by a new property or when you discover one that seems more important than others.
  4. Create a visual mnemonic that teaches this concept. It can be a new take on an old mnemonic. Demonstrate your mnemonic with a poster or in a video.
  5. Record an interview an engineer, college math professor, or AP math teacher about how this topic is connected to math at their level. Share your findings with the class.
  6. What is the material in this unit building up to? Use a graphic organizer to explain how the pieces of what you are learning come together as an overall concept.
  7. Imagine that you had been able to skip grades from 5th grade all the way to this class. Create a road map of vital information to help your younger self get caught up easily as possible. In other words, what would you teach yourself, how would you teach it, and in what order?
  8. Think about the last 5 topics you learned in math. Without looking ahead, make a prediction about where you think these concepts are leading. Using your prediction, write a test question that you expect to see on the final exam.

Science

  1. Create a __________ (pyramid, flow-chart, hierarchy) to describe what the material in this unit is building up to as an overall concept.
  2. How did scientists prove that this idea or concept was valid? How closely can they predict or track this phenomenon?
  3. How would you go about proving this idea or concept to be true? What are some alternative viewpoints? Do they hold true under scrutiny?
  4. Give the name, birth and death dates, country of origin, and major contribution of 5 scientists or great thinkers who helped expand this scientific idea or concept.
  5. What helpful technologies have stemmed from this scientific concept?
  6. If this concept were a character from your favorite show, who would it be, and why? Consider personalities, physical traits, and relation to other characters.