Hexagonal thinking has been around for a bit. It definitely engages students, and right now, that’s half the battle, right? Hexagonal thinking is more than engaging, however, when used effectively. 

Here are three effective strategies to teach argument using hexagonal thinking. (Plus, a free hexagon template download.)

Brainstorming with Hexagonal Thinking:

Brainstorming is underused and under-appreciated. Too many times brainstorming becomes a simple list of ideas you might want to write about with the final choice circled on it. Students filter ideas before they ever hit the page. 

Teacher friends, filtering ideas before they hit the page is NOT brainstorming. 

Hexagonal thinking creates a fun and interactive path to true brainstorming. Try this: 

Hexagonal Thinking Brainstorming Step 1:

• Provide students with 10 hexagons. 
• Display a prompt.
• Set a timer for 60 seconds.
• Challenge students to fill every hexagon with a response to the prompt.

That is step one. Creating a game challenge naturally engages students. It also removes the filter. It doesn’t matter if the response they write on the hexagon is “dumb”. The goal is to fill the shapes with a response. 

Hexagonal Thinking Brainstorming Step 2: 

• Clear a space on the floor or table. 
• Instruct all students to connect their hexagonal thinking responses like puzzle pieces. 
• Invite students to record (on paper or with a cell phone pic) the intriguing, essay worthy ideas. 

The hexagonal thinking style of brainstorming allows students to share ideas and see growth from their own ideas in ways that inspire writing. 

My freshmen recently used Hexagonal Brainstorming as a prewriting activity for their Fahrenheit 451 group projects. The prompt asked about the connection between knowledge and power.

We placed the KNOWLEDGE hexagon at one end and the POWER hexagon at the other. Students completed the bridge with their own responses to the prompt. For their responses, they filled one hexagon with evidence and one hexagon with commentary. As you can see, each class discovered unique connections between knowledge and power.  

Outlining with Hexagonal Thinking:

Students see outlining as such a chore. How many times has a student asked you if they can write the essay first and then create the outline? A hexagonal thinking outline removes the drudgery and expands the path to effective argument.  

Remember using old fashioned notecards for research papers? Hexagonal outlining stems from that same idea, only this outline strategy creates a hive rather than a numbered list. This hive helps students see how their ideas connect, creating smoother transitions and stronger argument.

Hexagonal Outlining:

• Based on their research claim or prompt, students write research questions on three to five hexagons labeled with those numbers. 
• As students research, they write evidence on as many hexagons as they need, recording citation information on the back along with the number from the question hexagon that the evidence matches.
• After sufficient research and note taking, students individually lay out their questions and evidence hexagons, moving shapes around as they notice patterns and/or connections. 
• Record the research question answers inferred from the evidence hive.
• Transfer those answers as argument points to a traditional outline template.
• Instruct students to recognize the gaps they will need to fill in with evidence and commentary.

You will need to instruct students on how to transfer the information from the hexagons to the outline. Students might need more discussion or clarification on how to find evidence and include commentary, but the basic outline is done. Often, that is more than half the battle. 

Reflecting with Hexagonal Thinking:

Reflection is a vital part of learning. However, the typical journal entry type reflection can become boring and rote, another task for students to check off the list. Using hexagonal thinking to reflect is–you guessed it–engaging. It’s also effective. The idea of reflection, after all, is to encourage metacognition. While writing is powerful, not all reflection must be written. 

Hexagonal Reflecting:

• Display reflection prompts.
  • What concepts or obstacles did you struggle with during this lesson? Paired with: How did you overcome those obstacles or struggles?
  • What are you most proud of regarding this assignment? Paired with: How did you achieve this success?
  • What is one take-away you learned from the content studied in this lesson? Paired with: Why does this take-away resonate with you? 
• Students record their response to the paired prompts on two separate hexagons.
  • Instruct students to arrange and connect responses to the first prompt on the floor or table top. 
  • Instruct students to add the responses to the second prompt anywhere on the first reflection hive that makes sense. 

Students  don’t need to add their own second prompt to their own first prompt. Usually, they find that their second response applies to many of the first responses. I like to follow up with a quick debriefing about what they notice about the connections formed in the reflection hive.

Hexagonal thinking activities are effective because they take students out of their own heads and out of their desks. Students discover connections and grow their ideas. 

Where to get the hexagons.

One obstacle that kept me from jumping on the hexagon bandwagon for a while was the simple problem of acquiring the hexagons. I know some teachers who took the time to draw templates, made copies, and then had students cut their own shapes. Cutting your own shapes is not a bad solution, but I’m a hoarder of my classroom time. I don’t want to spend it cutting shapes when we could be analyzing. However, if you have a classroom aide to do it for you, print these templates to start hexagonally thinking with your students today. ⇊⇊⇊⇊

Click here to download two sizes of hexagon templates PDFs. 

So what size is appropriate for hexagonal thinking activities? It depends. I prefer purchasing various sizes to fit the nature of various lessons.

Some hexagonal thinking activities might be great to display. For example, if students work in small groups to recognize connections between characters in a novel, you might want to tape the shapes together and display the various designs for comparison. For an activity like that, you’ll want smaller sizes. I like this pack of 300 count  two-inch quilting templates. They are very affordable and, come on, there are 300 of them! 

Another fun option is this hexagon sticky note ball. It comes with twelve pads of twenty-five pages each. Some pads are lines and some aren’t, so you can take advantage of those differences. Use one hexagon for words and one for a quick sketch. 

My favorite is this six-inch hexagon sticky note pad. First, the size allows for thoughtful responses. Second, they are color-coded. Third, they have a little line at the bottom for things like captions, page or source number, or parts of speech. It comes with six different colored pads, fifty sheets in each pad. 

One final twist is the hexagonal dry erase board. You’ll spend a bit more up front for a classroom set, but you won’t have to continually replenish. This set comes in a set of eight different colors and four colored dry erase markers. Also, they are magnetic, so you can display them on your own classroom magnetic white board if you are lucky enough to have one. 

If you haven’t tried hexagonal thinking activities, now is the time. Spring comes with restlessness. Get those students up and moving. 

If you have used hexagonal thinking activities, maybe you haven’t used them for brainstorming, outlining, and reflecting. Give it a try and let us know how it works for you. Also, please share your best tips for hexagonal thinking in the classroom. We’d love to hear from you.