Using Depth & Complexity Icons to help students synthesize, instead of plagiarize

[Melissa LiCon]

Hi all:

I'm so excited about being a part of this talented, committed and passionate group of people. Feel free to refer to me as your token non-language arts group member. My educational background is in biology and chemistry; I worked as a scientific illustrator in a past life (i.e., pre-teaching.) After teaching science for twelve years in middle and high school, I accepted a position as a program coordinator for the Gifted & Talented program. I provide teacher training and support in gifted curriculum models and in differentiating instruction for high ability learners. 

The best part of my job is teaching in the SWAS classes for highly gifted students, and the pull-out gifted program classes. I always feel like I'm going full speed in order to keep up with those amazing children! Our program has gone through tremendous change, and also growth in numbers of kids served, in the last couple of years. We now serve a much more culturally and ethnically diverse group of students, thanks to efforts to identify underrepresented groups. Needless to say, that means our overall numbers have increased as well. 

Because many gifted students experience "asynchronous development" our teachers find themselves differentiating a great deal to meet the highly variable needs of gifted students. For example, in one the SWAS classes I was working with this past week, some of the students are working three to four years ahead of their age-level peers in math; others in the same class are slightly below grade level in math. That's because gifted learners may be highly gifted in one or two cognitive areas, but near average (whatever that means) or below average in another area. Some students in the GATE program are twice exceptional, in other words, receiving special education services and receiving gifted services. Many of the students in one of the SWAS classrooms have severe dysgraphia, and write painfully slowly with great difficulty. These same kids have thought processes that are far more rapid than their writing speed. Give them a laptop, and suddenly their writing takes off! 

My idea stems from one of the problems I faced in my science classes. It is a problem that many teachers share, I think, because many of the teachers I work with have asked each other and me for ideas, best practices, new strategies to try out. Research and inquiry is such an important part of all the content areas. Teachers in math, science, social studies, and language arts are asking students to demonstrate their learning in their writing, through constructed response assessment items, creative projects and presentations, essays, persuasive writing, in-depth research projects, student-led seminars. All too often, students take a "cut-and-paste" or "read & regurgitate" approach to expository writing, perhaps because we as teachers have failed to give them tools to use to do anything else. It's easy to say "pull your research information together and come up with a unique, new idea!" It's much harder to break that mysterious alchemy down into understandable steps. 

My idea is to use the depth and complexity icons developed by Sandra J. Kaplan as thinking tools for summarizing and synthesizing what students read and understand about a topic. These icons can be thought of like lenses you look through. Some of the icons are PATTERNS, ETHICS, TRENDS, MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES, RULES, DETAILS, UNANSWERED QUESTIONS, CHANGE OVER TIME. They were developed to add depth and complexity to the curriculum for gifted learners, but they can be used successfully, I believe, with a wide range of learners. Students can be introduced to these icons, or thinking tools, early on in the year. A teacher then can reinforce them by  asking students to read a piece of text or writing while looking for one of the icons. "As you're reading about battlefield strategy during the early battles of the Civil War, look for patterns or trends." The icons can be used to help students look for theme in literature, or integrate their understanding of ideas and organization in their own writing. Expository writing can be organized around one or more of the thinking tools. Think how much more successful you might have felt about your first major research paper if you had been able to organize your facts (jotted on dozens of index cards) around one of these "Big Ideas." Students can begin to see what it means to come up with your own perspective or point of view about the topic; it means looking though one of these lenses at the material, then writing about it as seen through that lens! 

I have already had a chance to go into several of our gifted classrooms and introduce the icons. I had pairs of students each read a picture book, and identify which depth and complexity icon they felt connected to the story. Then they used that icon to describe what they felt was the main theme of the story in a paragraph. I encouraged them to think like "theme detectives" as they described the theme - using "clues" in the story, making inferences about it. I would like to build on that by having the students do some kind of inquiry-based research and expository writing, but I may not be able to do that before the end of the year. I am working on getting time in one of the green track classrooms, since they have several more weeks of school before their next break. Please feel free to give me suggestions, ideas, constructive feedback. I'm the newbie in this group, and I can really use help from all you veterans!

[Kelly Rubero]

Hi Melissa,

I was presented with the depth and complexity icons a couple of years ago when I began teaching middle school gifted students. I am really looking forward to your demonstration so that I can get some ideas for introducing them to my students. Also, to know that the icons can be used to strengthen expository writing is so exciting since I will be looking for many ideas as the 8th grade writing test will be expository starting next year.

Kelly

[carol bergin]

Melissa;
I teach 5th/6th grade special ed language arts (other side of your spectrum), but found your discussion interesting and challenging). Our "expository" writing is about as basis as possible, but I'm hoping to utilize at least some of your icons to aid with the 5th grade proficiency tests.

[Stephen B. Duncan]

Melissa,
I have also found that my students regularly do the cut-and-paste or read-and-regurgitate type of writing you describe. It is frustrating. I think I will have to check into the Sandra J. Kaplan tools myself as well as take studious notes from your presentation. I look forward to it.

[Christy]

Hi Melissa,
Well isn't this the truth. Most students have know idea how to actually formulate research without cutting and pasting or writing information down word for word. We had to learn the hard way as students. I can not remember the cut and paste option. Sheesh am I that old? I agree that we need to give the students the tools to use in order to create good writing and that of their own. I am looking forward to the icons in which you will be presenting. I am certain I can use this in my classroom next year. I am looking forward to your presentation.
Christy