Writing Central Ideas

When people first begin writing enduring, essential understandings, they are often very general and obtuse. The overuse of the verbs impact, affect, influence as well as the verbs is, are and have is a major reason for these weak statements. Learning how to scaffold your thinking using questions is a powerful tool for tightening, clarifying, and developing generalisations to deeper levels of sophistication. To scaffold a generalisation from a weaker Level 1, use and answer the questions "How?" "Why?" and "So what?" Read through the following example of a scaffolded generalisation from the bottom up (Level 1 to Level 3).

Level 3: Severe disruption of a community's social and economic infrastructure leads to feelings of loss, anxiety, confusion, and anger. Or, severe disruption of a community's social and economic infrastructure requires strong leadership with the ability to problem solve, communicate effectively and collaborate to get things done.

So what-is the significance, or effect, if the social and economic, infrastructure is disrupted?

Level 2: Natural disasters can disrupt the social and economic infrastructure of a community.

How do natural disasters impact a community?

Level 1: Natural disasters impact a community.

Note that we want to drop the weaker Level 1 generalisations in our units and teach to Level 2. Teaching to this level will raise academic standards because we are teaching deeper, conceptual specificity. Level 3 can be used to differentiate and challenge advanced learners, or you may wish to take all the students through to Level 3.

Here are some additional scaffolding samples from a ninth grade physics unit on constant acceleration developed by Matt Watson and Cathy Harne, Twin Valley School District, Elverson, Pennsylvania:

Level 3: The velocity of an object can be determined from an x-t graph even if the x-t graph is curved.

So what is the significance?

Level 2: By drawing secant chords and solving for the slope of the chord, one can determine the instantaneous velocity of the object at an intermediate clock reading.

How does the slope determine the velocity?

Level 1: The slope of an x-t graph can determine the velocity of an object.

Erikson H. L., 2007, Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom, Corwin, CA.