Depth and Complexity Overview

I am still working on getting the icons to show up next to their descriptions, but here is an overview of the Icons of Depth and Complexity as well as how we recently applied some of the icons to the story The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.  I recorded the scholars' ideas on the chart paper as we read the story together and they recognized how different story elements could be understood better through application of the different icons.

A Brief Explanation of Kaplan’s Icons of Depth and Complexity

Dimensions of Depth
	Language of the Discipline:  Indicates identification and usage of appropriate language relative to the discipline.
	Details:  Indicates elaboration and description of an idea or event.
	Patterns:  Indicates recurring elements or repeated factors of an idea or event, as well as the order of events.  Identify & predict.
	Trends:  Indicates identification of changes throughout a period as well as the factors, influences & forces. Note causality & predict.
	Unanswered Questions:  Indicates unclear ideas & information as well as what is unknown, unexplored, unproved.  Identify & guess.
	Rules:  Indicates organizational elements relevant to curriculum.  Note order, determine relevance, organize, & identify learnings.
	Ethics:  Indicates possible rights & wrongs of an event, idea, or issue. Reflection on bias, prejudice, discrimination.  Draw conclusions, argue, and prove with evidence.
	Big Idea:  Indicates a generalization, principle, or theory about the curriculum being studied.  Identify theory, state principle.
Dimensions of Complexity
	Over Time:  Indicates a change over time where changes are identified and causality examined.  Predict, order, & sequence.
	Points of View:  Indicates multiple perspectives. Examine ideas and events from different perspectives.  Think like a . . .
	Interdisciplinary Connections:  Indicates a connection between the curriculum under study and other.  Associate, integrate, & link.