Laurie Clenott Kadoch, Vermont Law School Working Title: New Uses for an Old Technique: Diagramming for Assessing and Achieving Higher Order Thinking or Following a Path Through Content to Understanding As law teachers committed to teaching we strive to help each student reach a higher order of critical and analytical thinking about our particular subject matter. We want significant concepts from the content of the course to be internalized. We want students to leave our classrooms with the content of the course available to them in their minds, so that they can actually use the content in the “real” world. In other words, we want our students to think through content for understanding. This teaching goal requires that we think about our students’ thinking habits and abilities. Whether we approach the challenge through a stage-based, developmentalist perspective, through the belief that higher level thinking is a learned skill, or through some combination of the two, we are faced with several related challenges. First, what methods can we use to get a base reading of each student’s thinking habits, level of thinking development or abilities. Second, what techniques of teaching and/or assessing higher order thinking can be incorporated into our current course materials and individual classroom styles and persona. Finally, how can we engage the student in learning to think as a critic of their own thinking. I suggest that the old technique of diagramming, fondly remembered (or not) from Junior High English, is one effective technique that can be adapted to meet all three challenges. In my presentation I would share the multiple uses that I have found effective for the diagram. Diagramming presents an adaptable technique to assess and improve the clarity, accuracy, precision, relevancy, and depth of student thinking about course content. It can be used in the large lecture format that uses the Socratic method, in the smaller seminar, and in any type of class in between. I have used the diagram to engage students in thinking about and critiquing the analysis of individual decisions and the relationship between lines of decisions. I use the diagram as a self-assessment tool. The diagram lays bare the connecting threads of a student’s thought processes. In both oral and written discourse rhetoric can often obscure those threads both for the student and the teacher. Through diagram the student can identify gaps in understanding. This technique proves helpful whether the student is a big picture or detail oriented thinker. The diagram allows the teacher and the student to visually think out loud; it provides a mechanism for students to place content in context; it helps the student develop strategies for cultivating critical reading, writing, speaking, and listening; it provides a tool for students to probe the various dimensions of their thinking: purpose, evidence, reasons, deductions, and conclusions etc.; it allows the student to move in a visually concrete way from concrete thinking to the theoretical; it is conducive to individual and group exercises; it provides structure and framework to content; and helps students to develop intellectual standards for assessing their own understanding and progress