This class runs on repeated routines. Each one is taught once, early, and then used everywhere, so the moves become automatic and the thinking stays yours.
| Routine | What it is | First taught | Where it runs | What you produce |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bell ringer | 5-minute do-now while attendance happens | U0 B1 | Every block | A dated Field Notebook page |
| Learning panel + "I can" ticks | Today's target, checkable | U0 B1 | Every block | Your own progress read |
| Power Notes | Capture format for videos and readings (seeds fade after U2) | U0 B1 to B2 | Every Concepts section | Power outlines in your Class Notebook |
| Sketch-to-Stretch | Draw what you think BEFORE the convention arrives; no words allowed | U1 B2 | U2 B1 · U3 B1 · U4 B1 (draw-twice) · U5 (planned · wired during the U5 pass) | Before/after sketches in your Field Notebook |
| Factstorming | Group fact-retrieval at unit seams; the harvest board becomes OPVL material | U2 B2 | U2 B3 (AI-comparison) · U3 B5 · U1 B10 (pre-defense, informal first run) | The harvest, then the verification |
| FourThought | Four-directions prewriting: describe · react · analyze · solve | U4 B9 | U4 Climate Brief prewriting · U5 Position Paper (planned) | The filled one-page organizer |
| Reflect | One question before you leave, answered in the Reflection Journal tool via Google Classroom | U0 B1 | Every block | Your saved reflection, and your own archive of the year |
| Class Notebook | One Google Doc, all year. Every entry opens with a header line the site gives you, so the index builds itself | U0 B1 | Every block | The year's thinking, indexed |
| Field Notebook | Paper, handed out at the start of class. For anything you need down fast or drawn rather than typed | U0 B1 | Every block | Bell ringers and sketches, dated |
| OPVL | Four questions asked of every source | U0 B1 | Every unit, every source | OPVL entries |
| Notemaking techniques (pick two) | Five generation methods | U0 (Notetaking page) | Weekly, your choice | Notes that survive closing the book |
| AI Documentation Template | Disclosure that makes AI use legitimate | U0 B3 | Every deliverable | The template + "one thing it got wrong" |
| Choice boards | Pick your path through the work | U0 B2 | Most Do sections | The same artifact by your route |
| Peer-check cards | Structured partner review | U0 B4 | Work days | One specific suggestion per strand |
| Answer pattern: acknowledge, restate, answer, cite, check | Acknowledge · restate · answer · cite · check | U0 B6 | Every defense | Q&A responses that hold |
| Defenses & panels | Your work meets an audience | U0 B7 | Every unit summative | The pitch + Q&A |
| The planted flaw | Every exemplar hides one deliberate error | U0 exemplar | Every exemplar | The catch, argued |
| Revision Trail | Who changed what, draft to final | U1 B8 | U2 B8 · U4 B11 · U5 (assessed) | The one-page trail |
| Division-of-Labour Plan | Split the problem before solving; mark AI vs. you | U3 B6 | U5 (assessed) | The plan, checked against reality |
Routine in depth: Factstorming
Some routines need more than a table row. This one runs at the seams of units: the start, and right before a defense.
Groups of three or four, one recorder, one question with many right answers, four minutes. Pour out every FACT you can: things you know, not ideas you're inventing. The rules: everything goes on the list; nobody judges during the storm; build on what you hear; stop when time stops. Judging quality comes AFTER, and in this class, "after" means the harvest board becomes source-evaluation material: which of these facts would survive a check?
The variant you'll meet in Unit 2: after the room storms, we ask the class AI platform the same question and put its list next to ours. Three things always happen. The AI lists facts nobody in the room knew, and at least one needs verifying before we trust it. The room lists facts the AI didn't have, and they're almost always local: the specific lake, the street that floods, what your grandmother remembers. And someone asks whether we needed the AI at all, which is exactly the right question to leave the room holding.
(Factstorming has a sibling: Brainstorming, for generating new ideas rather than retrieving known facts. It arrives when this course starts designing things, in Units 3 and 6.)
Routine in depth: FourThought
Before you write something big, think in four directions. FourThought is a one-page organizer with four quadrants, and the order matters:
DESCRIBE IT: just the facts. What is happening, where, to whom? What numbers do you actually have?
REACT TO IT: your honest response. What worries you, angers you, surprises you? Who do you think of? (Yes, this quadrant belongs in science. Pretending you have no reaction doesn't make you objective. It makes your reaction invisible to you.)
ANALYZE IT: the mechanisms. Why does this happen? Who gains from things staying as they are? What constraints, money, politics, physics, limit what's possible?
SOLVE IT: the directions. What could be done, by whom, at what cost? Which candidate solution would you defend?
The four quadrants balance each other: Describe keeps React honest; React gives Analyze a reason to matter; Analyze keeps Solve from being a wish. A filled FourThought page is not a draft: it's the thing that makes drafting possible.
Rubric language for all of it lives at The Rubric Explained.