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Visible Thinking Routine

The 4C's.

Connections · Challenge · Concepts · Changes — after a text.

N_prompt pattern connect interpret complexity conclude

What is it

What is The 4C's?

Used after reading. Builds on Connect-Extend-Challenge with two extra prompts.

Setup: Provide the text or its title.

How it works

The prompts

  1. 01

    CONNECTIONS — to your life or other learning?

    Response: Longtext

  2. 02

    CHALLENGE — what do you want to argue with?

    Response: Longtext

  3. 03

    CONCEPTS — key ideas worth holding on to?

    Response: Longtext

  4. 04

    CHANGES — in attitude, thinking, or action?

    Response: Longtext

When to use

Good moments for The 4C's

  • Classroom warm-up. Surface what students bring before introducing new content.
  • After a reading or video. Consolidate big ideas without testing recall.
  • Discussion starter. Responses become the seed material for the room conversation.
  • End-of-session reflection. Capture how thinking changed.

Keep exploring

Other thinking routines

Browse all 21 routines in the gallery, filtered by the kind of thinking you want to surface — observation, perspective-taking, reasoning with evidence, or capturing the heart of an idea.

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