It’s easy to think of hexagonal thinking as a big event, a full-class activity that you set up and run for a whole period. But once your students know how to use this tool, it could come in handy in lots of other ways. Especially if you keep some blank hexagons on hand in your classroom. In today’s short episode, I want to share five ten-minute hexagonal thinking activities you could use in your ELA classroom any old time, but my hope is that after hearing these ten, you’ll realize there are hundreds more waiting. This is a tool you can reach for time and again, to help students warm-up for discussion, look at things in a new way, or organize their thinking, their research, or their ideas in the midst of all types of units.
For today’s examples, I’m going to use Trevor Noah’s memoir, Born a Crime, as an example text. Facing History & Ourselves has his chapter,”Chameleon,” available online here, if you’re intrigued and want to learn more.
Discussion Warm-Up: Create Three Hexagons
So let’s say you’re about to hold a discussion (fishbowl, socratic, Harkness, etc.) and you’d like to help students warm-up so they have some topic ideas, interesting connections, deeper questions, etc. and they’re not still thinking about lunch. Pass out three blank hexagons to every student and ask them to fill them in with concepts related to the reading. They could be characters, themes, quotes, ideas from other books that the reading made them think about, events in history, things happening in the news, etc. Anything goes. Give them two minutes to come up with their three hexagons.
Now invite students to stand up with their hexagons and find a partner, maybe with a little spin like “Find a partner with the same favorite season as you” to get them up and moving. Once they find a partner have them find a way to connect all six of their hexagons, writing down either a discussion question that comes out of their web or an interesting connection. Mix it up and do it again. And again. As many times as you want before you start the discussion.
Add-the-Unexpected
For this activity, give students a mini-deck of five hexagons in a small group. The hexagons can all be the same, related to the text you’re reading. Let them briefly discuss the hexagons and create a little web. Next, give every group a hexagon from your secret curveball deck. Your curveballs can be concepts can be contemporary issues, emergent technology, big ideas from your essential question of the moment or from what you know students are studying in another class. Now challenge them to fit the curveball in as a central hexagon. After giving them time to discuss and possibly write about the connections they uncover, have students pass their curveballs and try a new one on for size. Repeat as much as you wish, changing up the groups if you wish.
Make-your-Middle
For this challenge, put students into small groups and give the groups six blank hexagons. Each group will have a partner group.
Start by having the group come up with six hexagons connected to the text – as usual, themes, characters, setting elements, quotes, etc.
Now the group will pass their hexagons over to the group next door, trading decks. Give each group a differently colored hexagon and tell them this hexagon needs to go in the MIDDLE of the six they’ve just received. And it needs to be something from outside the text – a current event, a big idea from history, an emotion, a quotation from another text, a big question, etc. How can they tie all six together? Once they come up with a central connecting hexagon, invite them to write about their choice before presenting back to the other group.
Pull Four and Abandon One
For this activity, small groups could start by creating a deck of hexagons about a text, or you could give them a deck to use. Individually or in pairs, they should pull four hexagons out randomly and choose three that work together well and one they’d reject. This activity pulls from Amanda Cardenas over at Mud & Ink‘s fabulous Sesame Street Quiz concept.
Once students reject a hex, they could present back to the group on which they pulled out and why, or write about their choice. After everyone is done, they can return their hexes, scramble them, and do it again. This could be a good warm-up for a full hexagonal thinking web activity for the group, or for a larger discussion or writing project.
The Mini-Deck Gallery
This quick activity requires just 9 blank hexagons per group. Put students into groups of three and ask them to create their own miniature deck. One player will come up with three key themes from the reading. Another will choose three crucial quotations. The third will choose and create three illustrations representing some aspect of the reading. Then students can create a web for their mini-deck. After that you could have them write about connections and do a gallery walk, or you could have each student pick up their three hexagons and remix – finding new partners with the other two elements and having a new discussion.
Your Turn
As I’m sure you’re seeing, there are a million ways to do a hexagonal thinking mini. I hope in the coming days you’ll give one of these ideas a try or come up with your own spin and see where it takes you. These small practices will only help your students strengthen their skills with this approach when it comes to a larger hexagonal thinking discussion.
Go Further
When you’re ready for a full-class lesson with hexagonal thinking, you can use this free digital toolkit for models, directions, and templates.
