Design Thinking for Literacy

The last few years I've been exploring Design Thinking’s potential in regards to practical classroom applications. After having used it with my Grade 5’s to great effect in a cross curricular Project-Based Learning setting, I was asked by a colleague how it might look in a classroom where PBL isn’t taking place, or where the teacher is only responsible for one subject area. Her speciality was English and so I began to toy with different ideas within my own classroom… the next unit was to be novel studies and so I wondered if we could build Design Thinking into reading comprehension or during deeper text studies.

What began as a little experiment turned into a very valuable exercise! I read a short book with my students (A kids version of Beowulf) and I stopped when we encountered the problem, which invariably every good book should have! This was the magic moment when we employed the DT stages of investigation.

First of all I asked my students to empathise with the main characters in regards to their problem. What is the personality like? We made empathy maps for the protagonists revealing what these people might think, say, feel and do.

What do we know about King Hrothgar and Beowulf?

We followed this up with character hot-seating and freeze framing to elicit responses to the questions of students and tried different ways to gather a ‘user-story’ from the main characters of the book. This stage really brought my children closer to the protagonists in a way they had never experienced before – as if the character was a REAL person with a REAL problem. It eliminated the distance between reader and material. This exercises skills which require closer analysis and understanding of the text, what can we infer and deduce? We asked questions like "How did Beowulf go about his daily business?", "How would Beowulf brush his teeth?", "What would he do if his car didn’t start or if the train was late?", and "What would his favourite film be? Why?" These questions although aren’t particularly serious, they force the children to infer from what they have read and extend these ideas – to give life to a real person out of the text character. Another very powerful exercise was attempting to empathise with the ‘pest’ of the novel and find out their needs. Why was the bad guy the bad guy? Which helped them later in the idea stage - how might we pacify the pest?

We then defined the problem using a problem statement. This required us to think about the problem not in a general way but really grasp the essence of the dilemma. We analysed the situation and the discussed the factors and then synthesised them into a statement which summed up the real matter at hand. What exactly needed to be overcome? We even discovered something very thematic and poignant about traditional Hero myths, that often the problem is shouldered by the hero even when it is not his problem to begin with; it is someone who is willing to intervene without personal necessity and risk everything for others. The problem is not always as simple as ‘slaying the dragon’ which the next stages taught us a great deal about.

After this we began to explore possible ideas which the main character could employ to solve the problem. This can be an amazingly creative and fun experience! Can the children think of a peaceful way to solve the issue? Is there a technological approach? This stage for me, is the very function of creativity. It is not random chaotic creativity but focussed creativity within parameters. As Goethe stated “In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister” - the master can be seen when we are given boundaries to work within.

Ideation games like hot-potato and the idea train helped us generate great "out of the box" solutions!

The prototyping stage was when the children were given free reign to write their own continuation for the story based on what they proposed during the ideation stage. Based upon their empathy with the characters, their understanding of the REAL problem at hand and their exploration of ideas the students planned and finished the story by solving the problem in their own unique ways! It was amazing to read some of these excerpts and I realised they understood the text and had connected with it in ways they had never done before. It was almost an ‘inside-out’ comprehension of the material and as such they were able to build upon it to bring it to a logical conclusion.

Finally, we wanted to test the product. We pinned our work down the hallway in the corridor and did a class-based gallery walk with others giving their feedback on the text based on our usual writing rubrics (after all the writing must also be of good quality!) and the responses to the solutions the students had dreamed up. We then opened this up to a larger school audience, collecting feedback from students and adults around the school. Once children had collected sticky notes, e-feedback and verbal feedback from their audience, they went back and made adjustments. They refined their writing and printed a final copy. We now had 20 different endings and human-centered solutions for Beowulf to draw upon in his quest for peace in Geatland!

All aboard the idea train! A great exercise full of fun for engaging brains of all ages...

This ‘experiment’ yielded really exciting results and if anything it should give you heart to go out on a limb and try something new in class. The feedback and achievements of my students show a depth of understanding about the story that I haven’t seen with other approaches, and when I consider the skills and thinking processes that were drawn upon during the study it really was an experience packed full of rich educational opportunity!