The Meta-Cognitive Frames of Reference: Taking Thinking Maps to the Next Level (Part 3- The Red Frame)

Note: This is the third in a three-part series on the Metacognitive Frames of Reference. If you missed one or both of my previous posts, it would be helpful to take a look at them before proceeding with this one. Here are their links:

https://spotlightclassrooms.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-meta-cognitive-frames-of-reference.html

https://spotlightclassrooms.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-meta-cognitive-frames-of-reference.html

The Red Frame: What conclusions can you draw?

While I still maintain that the Blue Frame of Reference can make the biggest impact on instruction, I suspect many readers will find the Red Frame to be the most immediately useful. This is due to the sheer number of Language Arts standards that can be consistently addressed through its use. The overarching question is:

What conclusions can you draw from your map?

According to Comprehension Strategies for Constructing Meaning, “drawing conclusions is inferring from text clues,” as opposed to a combination of text evidence and prior knowledge (pg. 131). Therefore, drawing conclusions from information in a thinking map involves inferring general theories, principles, or statements from the map’s component parts. A major theme of this blog post is how influential the Red Frame is on students’ writing, but let’s face it, not all of your daily assignments get taken to a full-blown written response. In these cases, embedded Red Frame questions provide students with opportunities to reflect on the conclusions they have drawn from their learning and thinking with quick constructed responses. The maps I produce for my students across the curriculum are replete with Red Frame questions because they are always relevant, regardless of the content of the map. Let’s investigate each guiding question in detail.

So What?

The left side of the Red Frame begins by asking:

So what is the main idea for the information in your map?

Within the Thinking Maps program, this is referred to as the “So what…” question. In Write from the Beginning, students are taught that the answer to this question should form the basis of the opening sentence or paragraph in a piece of expository writing, and it isn’t hard to understand why; if the reader knows the main idea of an essay from the start, it is much easier for her to comprehend how the various parts of the essay fit together. 

Of course, as the aspiring author of the aforementioned expository essay, a student won’t (and probably shouldn’t) always know what the main idea of her writing will be at the outset; this is where planning with thinking maps comes into play. If she is busy researching a topic, collecting scientific data, or applying a reading comprehension skill to a piece of literature, she likely hasn't had time to do the inductive reasoning necessary to piece her accumulated thoughts and information together in her head. Recording this information on an appropriate thinking map can go some way to solving this problem; this is because the structures of most of the maps will force (in a nice way) the student to consider how ideas and/or information relate to each other. However, even if she has done a beautiful job of completing her map, there remains work to be done; the main idea must still be determined. Let’s examine how Bloom’s Taxonomy can contribute to the achievement of this goal.

I believe that, if we are going to ask students to think, we should be precise about how this should be accomplished. It’s all well and good to ask them to find the main idea, but how in the world does that work? If the main idea of a map involves higher-level thinking, then some serious analysis is likely in order, and that is going to require scaffolding.

Differentiating:

The Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy breaks the “Analyze” level of cognition into three progressively more complex steps. The first, “Differentiating,” requires students to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information. In the case of a thinking map used to plan writing, this involves selecting researched information, collected data, text evidence, or prior knowledge to be placed on the thinking map. 

Organizing:

“Organizing,” the second step of analysis, entails determining how information fits within a structure. This is the aspect of cognition most blatantly encouraged and supported by thinking maps. The five “Text Organization Structure” maps: Double Bubble, Tree, Brace, Flow, and Multi-Flow possess implicit structures. For instance, if using a Double Bubble to organize a compare and contrast essay, the student will know that relevant pieces of information are topics, similarities, differences, or points of comparison due to the design of the map.

Attributing:

This leads us to the third and final step of analysis, “Attributing,” which the Revised Bloom’s defines as, “determining a point of view, bias, value, motivation, or intent underlying presented material.” Many of these terms may sound like they belong in the Blue Frame, but if any of them constitute the main idea of a map, they can also serve as answers to the left side of the Red Frame. 

The maps below have been labeled (in purple) to show how each part relates to the levels of analysis. The prompts in the smaller boxes help the student “Differentiate” between relevant and irrelevant information. The structure of each map guides the student through the “Organization” process. The big boxes on the right of each map contain prompts that will help the student “Attribute” the thematic concept and statement while simultaneously reminding them to work through the first two levels before doing so.

Thematic Statement Dual Left-Sided Partial Multi-Flow Maps

Of course, there will be other times when the main idea of the map is far more straightforward, if not totally obvious. If the student has completed a tree map about the three types of rock, the main idea should not require any deep analytical thinking. Such situations fall within the “Understand” level of Bloom’s Taxonomy, which makes sense since the first guiding question on the left side is: So what do you now understand about this concept or topic because of the thinking you have done?

The second guiding question asks:

So how would you summarize the main idea of this information?

This is essentially just another way to prompt students to consider the main idea. Summarizing, as both a reading strategy and a possible response to the Red Frame, will be the topic of my next blog post, so I will leave it there for now.

So why? 

The right side of the Red Frame asks the brilliantly simple question:

So why is the information in your map important?

It might not seem like earth-shattering stuff, but I must say this question has had a huge impact on my writing instruction because its answer can always serve as the basis of a student’s closing sentence or paragraph. When I was a kid, I was usually told to restate my introduction in my conclusion—so boring! The “So why…” side instead invites the student to consider one or both of the following questions:

So why is this information important to you?

and/or

So why is this information important to others?

Not only will these questions elicit more interesting conclusions, but they also encourage students to connect their thinking to the real world. The Write from the Beginning Expository/Informative writing manual has a wonderful section on the importance of hitting “triggers” in the closing paragraph of a point of view essay. Triggers are subjects that will be of potential interest to most readers. Saving or making money, serving as a role model, guaranteeing the safety of loved ones, saving time, improving one’s health, promoting equality, and improving children’s educational opportunities are all good reasons for readers to care about an author’s point of view. Many of these triggers can also apply to other types of expository writing.

Uses

The Thinking Maps program recommends teaching students to write their answers to the “So what…” question at the top of their maps and their answers to the “So why…” question at the bottom. I tend to put all of my Frames questions at the bottom of a map because I’m a rebel. In most instances, I like to customize Red Frame questions to the particular digital map. As you can see in the “Protagonist/Antagonist Double Bubble Map” below, I have asked a question from each side of the Red Frame that pertains to the reading comprehension skill being addressed, but in a pinch, you can always just pose the questions in their original forms.

I hope you have found my series on the Frames of Reference helpful. I would love to respond to any questions or comments you have in the section below!

Always Writing,

Eric Lovein

PS: Check out my post about Summarizing Flow Maps!: https://spotlightclassrooms.blogspot.com/2022/03/thinking-maps-for-fictional-narrative.html

...and my video on Circle Maps!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuQ9RkXXZcI