Step Inside

What is the Step Inside thinking routine?

Step Inside is a thinking routine in which children take the perspective of a person, creature or object in the material, and answer from inside it: what they perceive, what they know or believe, and what they care about. It builds empathy and close reading together.

How do you run Step Inside with a class?

Choose who first, out loud, and keep the name visible for the whole routine. Then take the three questions in order, correcting any answer that slips back into 'they' rather than 'I'. Fifteen minutes, and it is far better spoken before it is written.

Which subjects does Step Inside suit?

History and literature obviously, but the strongest version is often science or geography with a non-human subject — a river, a seed, a particle of rock. Children who find character work embarrassing will happily argue about what a river wants.

Which subjects does Step Inside suit?

People, creatures and objects all work — objects often best.

• History — somebody in the background of a photograph.
• Literature — a minor character who never gets to speak.
• Science — a seed, a water droplet, a particle of rock.
• Geography — a river, a mountain, a town that has changed.

What usually goes wrong with Step Inside?

Children slipping back into their own voice without noticing, so the answers become what they think rather than what the character would. Keep the chosen name visible and correct every 'they' to 'I' out loud until the class self-corrects.

Which year groups is Step Inside for?

Step Inside suits Year 2 upwards, grade 1 in the US. Younger children stay in their own voice without noticing, so keep correcting it. From Year 5, ask what their character does not know, which is the step that makes it genuinely difficult.

What do you do with it afterwards?

It turns into writing more easily than most routines, because the class has already committed to a voice. Diary entries, letters and monologues all come out of it — and because the answers had to be defensible from the source, the writing stays anchored to evidence.

How often should you use Step Inside?

Once every few weeks, and never twice on the same kind of subject. The routine gets its energy from an unfamiliar viewpoint, so alternating between people, creatures and objects keeps it working. Overused on characters in books, it starts to feel like a writing task.

What if there is almost nothing to go on?

That is usually a better choice, not a worse one. A figure at the edge of a photograph with no obvious story forces the class to build a perspective out of small details rather than reciting what they already know. Insist every answer points at something actually visible.

Step Inside compared with See, Think, Wonder

See, Think, Wonder examines a stimulus from outside it. Step Inside goes in. Run See, Think, Wonder first on an unfamiliar image so the class knows what is actually there, then Step Inside to make them account for it from one point of view.