Finding the Right Content Angle

The first step in the Design Path is to determine the content for your inquiry. We call this finding a content angle. When developing your content angle, your goal is to think about the interesting aspects of the topic you want your students to learn about. It's super important to really focus in on what's interesting about the topic. We like to think about such content as being inquiry worthy. We'll work through an example below, then you'll try to find a content angle on a topic that you would like to drive your inquiry.

The American Civil War is a topic most of us have taught at some point in our teaching career. If you are like us, it can sometime feel overwhelming to know what and how to teach about the Civil War. One approach might be to tell kids about the war. Such an approach has some value. If you know the content, it's relatively easy to organize and deliver lectures. And it can be engaging, if you are really on your game. But, we all know that the person who probably benefits most from such direct and didactic approaches is the teacher. Kids need to engage at a deeper and more personal level; like you would when preparing a lecture and digging into the content, examining sources, and piecing together an understanding. What we do to prepare lectures is inquiry. That's what we should aspire for with our students. If you agree with us that our teaching goal should be to engage students in quality inquiry, then you probably already know the first step is to focus on content that really matters and has qualities that are relevant, interesting, and worth spending more time on.

Let's return to our example of the Civil War. It's hard to engage in deep inquiry-based learning about a topic that's so big. What we suggest is that you take on a slice of that content. Don't try to do it all. Find a slice that's particularly interesting and provides you with opportunities to make connections to other topics. Some teachers we know took on the task of trying to find a slice of Civil War content that was interesting and manageable for an inquiry. They decided to focus on Harriet Beecher Stowe's book Uncle Tom's Cabin. This slice of content brought forward opportunities to learn about abolitionism and the causes of the Civil War along with other related ideas, issues and people connected to the Civil War. They also thought this slice of content had an edge, or what we call a content angle. The topic is engaging and connects to things we care about today. We all know that the legacy of the Civil War lives on today. We don't have to look far to find examples. Examining how people thought about slavery in the lead up to the Civil War is, in our estimation, worth the time of an inquiry.

Design Challenge #1

Think about a topic (or maybe 2 or 3). Write down your topics and begin to play around with interesting aspects of each. You might have to take a slice of your content if it's too much. When you have the topic at the grain size appropriate for an inquiry (2-4 hours of learning), then start to think about what's interesting about your topic. This is what we call developing a content angle. It's best to write down your content angle in a paragraph.

Below each design challenge, you'll also see this blue box with information about accessing your working documents. For this first step, lease access your IDM Design Doc on Google Drive.

You can access the Google Drive folder HERE.

Please copy the folder that says "COPY THIS FOLDER." Rename the folder with your name and school. Inside your new folder open the Google doc titled "IDM Design doc." You'll see a space at the top to complete your work on determining a content angle.

When you have completed this design challenge, please proceed to the next step in the design process, Crafting a Compelling Question. You can also navigate using the pull down menu in the upper right under IDM's Design Path.

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