Lesson 5 of 7 · 5 min · 8-card deck

Modelling expert thinking

Think-aloud, live writing and worked examples in real time.

Pupils don't just need to see the finished product — they need to see the messy thinking that produced it. When you write an essay paragraph live on the visualiser, narrating your decisions ('I'm starting with the writer's name and the technique because that's what the question asks'), you make the invisible visible.

Two common modelling mistakes: showing only polished examples (which makes the work look magical and unattainable), and modelling silently (which strips out the cognitive moves that matter most). Effective modelling slows down, externalises the thinking, and explicitly highlights choices and self-corrections.

Active recall flashcards

Work through every card. Try to answer in your head before flipping — the act of retrieving is what builds durable memory.

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Practice scenario

An English teacher writes a paragraph live, narrating: 'I want to start with a topic sentence — let me check the question again... right, the question is about isolation, so I'll open with how Shakespeare presents Macbeth's isolation. Now for evidence — actually, that quotation is too long, let me find a shorter one I can embed...'.

Try this in your classroom

Think aloud — narrate every decision, including the 'wrong turns'.
Use a visualiser so pupils see your hand at work.
Apply backward-fading to scaffold from worked example to independent practice.
Model at the standard you expect, not below it.