Looking: Ten Times Two

What is the Looking: Ten Times Two thinking routine?

Looking: Ten Times Two is a thinking routine for slowing a class down in front of a picture. They look in silence for thirty seconds, list ten words or phrases, then look again and list ten more. The second list is the point: it has to hold things they missed the first time.

How do you run Ten Times Two with a class?

Put the picture up and start the timer. No talking and no writing while it runs. Then take ten words or phrases from the class, quickly, anything they noticed. Look again for another thirty seconds and take ten more, refusing anything already said. Ten minutes altogether.

What makes a good picture for Ten Times Two?

A picture with lots of small things in it that are not all obvious. A busy painting, a street photograph, an old map, a detailed illustration from a picture book. Avoid one clear subject on a plain background, because there is nothing left for the second look.

Which subjects does Ten Times Two suit?

Any lesson that starts with something to look at.

• Art: a painting, before any talk about the artist or what it means.
• History: a photograph or a painting of an event or a street.
• Geography: an aerial photograph or a landscape.
• English: an illustration before reading, to build the words for writing.

What usually goes wrong with Ten Times Two?

Talking during the look, which lets the loudest child decide what everyone sees. And a second ten that repeats the first in different words. Hold the silence, and when a repeat comes up, point to a part of the picture that nobody has mentioned yet.

Which year groups is Ten Times Two for?

It works from Year 1, kindergarten in the US, where single words are plenty and you do the writing. From Year 3 children can write their own lists, and by Year 5 the phrases become precise, which makes it a strong way in to descriptive writing.

What do you do with it afterwards?

Twenty words about one picture is a ready-made word bank. Use it for descriptive writing, or pick the three best words from the second ten and ask why nobody saw those things at first.

How often should you use Ten Times Two?

Once a week works well as a starter while a class is learning to look, then less often. The habit it builds, looking again before deciding you have seen everything, carries into every other picture routine on this site.

Ten Times Two compared with See, Think, Wonder

Both start with looking. See, Think, Wonder moves quickly from looking to what it might mean and what it makes you ask. Ten Times Two stays with the looking for longer and asks for nothing else. Use it first with a class that rushes to explain a picture before they have really seen it.