Invent a headline for this artwork or topic that captures an important aspect of it.

WHAT KIND OF THINKING DOES THIS ROUTINE ENCOURAGE? This routine helps students identify and clarify big ideas.

WHEN AND WHERE CAN IT BE USED? The routine works especially well at the end of a discussion or activity. Don’t be afraid to use it with complex topics or discussions, even if the headlines don’t seem immediately apparent. Using the routine will help students clarify their thinking.

What do you see in the artwork? / What do you know about the topic?

Compare: Choose a category from the list below or identify your own category.

Imagine: If this topic/artwork was a kind of _____________ (category), what would it be?

Explain three ways that it compares.

Good bet categories: Things that have a wide variety of parts or types. For example:
Musical instruments, Plants, Toys, Cities, Parts of the body, Artworks of all kinds (for topics that aren’t artworks), Music (for any topic or artwork that isn’t music)

WHAT KIND OF THINKING DOES THIS ROUTINE ENCOURAGE? The routine encourages metaphorical thinking – central to the work of any artist and to creative thinking in any discipline. Metaphors provoke our imaginations to create comparisons between dissimilar things, often leading to deeper and richer understanding of each.

WHEN AND WHERE CAN IT BE USED? Creating metaphors help students understand unfamiliar subjects by linking it to what they already know. Use the routine when you want to help students make connections between disparate elements or ideas, or to stimulate new insights and solutions.

How is the artwork or object connected to something you know about?

What new ideas or impressions do you have that extended your thinking in new directions?

What is challenging or confusing? What do you wonder about?

WHAT KIND OF THINKING DOES THIS ROUTINE ENCOURAGE? The routine helps students make connections between new ideas and prior knowledge. It also encourages them to make a personal connection to an artwork or topic.

WHEN AND WHERE CAN IT BE USED? A natural place to use this routine is after students have experienced something new. The routine is broadly applicable: Use it after students have explored a work of art, or anything else newly introduced in he curriculum. Try it as a reflection during a lesson, after a longer project, or when completing a unit of study. Try using it after another routine!

Write or say a few sentences using each of the sentence stems:

• I used to think… (topic, artwork or object)
• Now, I think… (topic, artwork or object)

WHAT KIND OF THINKING DOES THIS ROUTINE ENCOURAGE? This routine helps students to reflect on how their ideas and impressions have changed over time. It helps students recognize and consolidate new understandings, opinions, and beliefs, and it helps students become more reflective, self-aware learners.

WHEN AND WHERE CAN IT BE USED? Use this routine whenever students’ initial thoughts, opinions, or beliefs are likely to have changed as a result of instruction or experience. For instance, use it after reading new information, exploring or making an artwork, watching a film, listening to a speaker, experiencing something new, having a class discussion, and so on.

1. Say some broad things you know about a topic – observations, facts, ideas. Think of different kinds of things.

2. Place each statement somewhere on the complexity scale.

Simple —————————- Complex

3. Explain why you want to place it there.*

4. Reflect: What new insights and questions do you have about the topic?

*Feel free to discuss placement. You can even place a statement in more than one spot on the line (sometimes things are simple in one way, but complex in another).

WHAT KIND OF THINKING DOES THIS ROUTINE ENCOURAGE? This routine helps students build a more multi-dimensional mental model of a topic by identifying different aspects of the topic and considering their complexity. The benefit of the routine consists mainly in the reasoning students do in order to choose and explain their ratings. Of less importance is assigning each idea to the “right” place on the scale.

WHEN AND WHERE CAN IT BE USED? Use the Complexity Scale when you have been studying a topic for a while and students know something about it. But don’t wait until the end of the topic to use the routine. The Complexity Scale is a good way to surface students’ conceptions so you can get a sense of how they understand the topic in its entirety.

As a group, observe and describe several different sections of an artwork.

1. One person identifies a specific section of the artwork and describes what he or she sees.

Another person elaborates on the first person’s observations by adding more detail about the section.

A third person elaborates further by adding yet more detail, and a fourth person adds yet more.

Observers: Only describe what you see. Hold off giving your ideas about the art until the last step of the routine.

2. After four people have described a section in detail, another person identifies a new section of the artwork and the process starts over.

WHAT KIND OF THINKING DOES THIS ROUTINE ENCOURAGE? This routine encourages students to look carefully at details. It challenges them to develop verbal descriptions that are elaborate, nuanced, and imaginative. It also encourages them to distinguish between observations and interpretations by asking them to withhold their ideas about the artwork – their interpretations – until the end of the routine. This in turn strengthens students’ ability to reason carefully because it gives them practice making sustained observations before jumping into judgment.

WHEN AND WHERE CAN IT BE USED? Use this routine with any kind of visual art that stays still in time, such as painting or sculpture. You can also use the routine with non-art objects, such as a microscope, an animal skeleton, or a plant. The Elaboration Game is an especially good way to launch a writing activity because it helps students develop a detailed descriptive vocabulary.

Look at the artwork or object for a moment.

What colors do you see?

What shapes do you see?

What lines do you see?

WHAT KIND OF THINKING DOES THIS ROUTINE ENCOURAGE? The routine helps students make detailed observations by drawing their attention to the forms in an artwork – its formal aspects – and giving them specific categories of things to look for.

WHEN AND WHERE CAN IT BE USED? The routine can be used with any kind of visual art. It can also be used with visually rich non-art images or objects. Like the Looking: Ten Times Two routine, students can use the routine on its own, or prior to having a discussion about an artwork with another routine. It is especially useful before a writing activity because it helps students develop descriptive language.

1. Look at the image quietly for at least 30 seconds. Let your eyes wander.

2. List 10 words or phrases about any aspect of the picture.

3. Repeat Steps 1 & 2: Look at the image again and try to add 10 more words or phrases to your list.

WHAT KIND OF THINKING DOES THIS ROUTINE ENCOURAGE? The routine helps students slow down and make careful, detailed observations by encouraging them to push beyond first impressions and obvious features.

WHEN AND WHERE CAN IT BE USED? The routine can be used with any kind visual art. You can also use non-art images or objects. The routine can be used on its own, or to deepen the observation step of another routine. It is especially useful before a writing activity because it helps students develop descriptive language.

1. Listen to a piece of music quietly. Let your ears wander and take in as much as possible.

2. List 10 words or phrases about any aspect of what you hear.

3. Repeat Steps 1 & 2: Listen again and try to add 10 more words or phrases to your list.

WHAT KIND OF THINKING DOES THIS ROUTINE ENCOURAGE? The routine helps students slow down and make careful observations about music. It asks students to think about words or phrases to describe the work and encourages students to push beyond first listen or basic description.

WHEN AND WHERE CAN IT BE USED? The routine will work with any kind of music. Use Ten Times Two when you introduce a new piece of music to get students thinking carefully about it before having a discussion or using another routine. You can also use the Ten times Two routine after an in depth discussion about at a piece of music to both push forward and summarize some of the ideas and observations that were made during the conversation. The routine is useful before a writing activity. It gets students thinking about descriptive language and helps students make observations about the music.