Hexagonal Thinking

Every hexagon holds one idea from the book. Because hexagons tessellate, any two that touch are a claim — these two are connected — and the child has to say how. The talk is the point; the shapes just make it impossible to avoid.

Six chances to connect. A square has four neighbours; a hexagon has six, so the arrangements get genuinely difficult.

No right answer, but plenty of wrong ones. Any arrangement is allowed as long as it can be justified.

It exposes shallow understanding fast. A child who has skimmed the book cannot bluff a join.

Fill the hexagons on the board · printing them to cut out is free

The sheet it prints

The printable hexagonal thinking template — a sheet of blank hexagons to fill in and cut out.

What is hexagonal thinking?

Hexagonal thinking is an activity where each idea from a text is written on a hexagon, and children arrange the hexagons so that touching edges show a connection. Because a hexagon has six sides, each one can border six others, so a finished arrangement makes a lot of claims at once — and the child has to be able to justify every edge that touches.

The classroom version is closely associated with SOLO taxonomy — a model of the depth of understanding published by John Biggs and Kevin Collis in 1982 — and it was popularised for teachers largely through the SOLO work of the New Zealand educator Pam Hook. Hexagon mapping also has a separate history in systems thinking, so it is fairer to say the activity was popularised in classrooms through that work than invented for it.

How do you run a hexagonal thinking lesson?

Fill the hexagons first, together. On the board, add one idea per hexagon — characters, themes, events, places, objects. Do this as a class so the vocabulary is shared.
Print and cut. One set per pair or group of three. Never individually; the arguing is the activity.
Arrange, then re-arrange. Groups fit the hexagons together so touching hexagons are connected. Insist that they move things — a group that lays them out once and stops has not thought yet.
Walk the joins. Point at an edge and ask, why do those two touch? This is the assessment and it takes about ninety seconds per group.
Swap and challenge. Groups visit another table and try to find one join they would break. This is the best five minutes of the lesson.

How many hexagons should each group get?

Nine is the sweet spot for primary. Six is too few to be difficult — almost any six hexagons can be arranged so everything touches something. Twelve or more and younger children run out of working memory and start matching by colour or by word length rather than by meaning.

If a group finishes far too quickly, do not give them more hexagons. Give them two blank ones and make them decide what is missing. That is a much harder question than adding two you have chosen for them.

What should you write on the hexagons?

The mix matters more than the number. A set that is all characters produces a friendship map and nothing else. Aim for something like: two or three characters, two themes, two or three events, and one setting or object. The odd one out is what forces the interesting arguments.

From the classroom

The failure mode is a daisy — one hexagon in the middle, the rest fanned round it, and no other edges touching. It looks finished and it means nothing, because the child has only made connections to one idea. If you see a daisy, say one sentence: "Now do it without a middle." The group has to rebuild from scratch and the second attempt is always the real work.

How do you assess hexagonal thinking?

Do not mark the arrangement — there is no correct one, and marking it teaches children to guess what you wanted. Assess the justification of a single edge. Point at two touching hexagons and ask why. What you are listening for, roughly in order of depth: naming both ideas, describing the link, evidencing the link from the text, and finally explaining what the link tells us about the book as a whole.

Two children can produce identical layouts and be miles apart on that scale, which is exactly why the talk is the assessment and the photograph is not.

Does hexagonal thinking work with younger children?

Yes, from about Year 3, with two changes. Reduce to six hexagons and put a picture on each one as well as a word, so the reading load does not swamp the thinking. Below Year 3 it tends to become a jigsaw — children fit the shapes because the shapes fit, and the connections stop mattering. Use a simple sorting activity instead until the talk is strong enough to carry it.

Try it now

Type in eight or nine things from the book you are reading — two characters, two themes, a setting, three events — and print them. The lesson runs itself from there.