Six Thinking Hats 101 for writing skill

 Six Thinking Hats as a pre-writing technique

Vinay: Hey Ajay, Today's English class was awesome. 

Ajay: What Happened dude? You got excellent marks?

Vinay: No,no. My teacher discussed some pre-writing techniques to make us all start take interest in improving our writing skills. She spoke about brainstorming, mind mapping and De Bono's Six Thinking hats.

Ajay: I know about the first two. What is this Six Thinking Hats?

Vinay: It is a book written by  Dr. Edward de Bono. It deals with six specific and different aspects of writing. I will explain it. 

Imagine there are hats of six different colours each specific to certain thought/aspect. 

White hat : Data, facts

Red Hat: Emotions, Feelings, Opinions

Yellow Hat: Benefits, Good points. Anything you like about it.

Black Hat: Bad points, Problems. Mistakes you can find.

Green Hat: Creativity. Do something differently. What if there were different ways to overcome the problem?Blue Hat: Conclusions. Connect to the main idea.

Blue Hat: Conclusions. Connect to the main idea. 

My English teacher today divided the class into groups of six students and made us wear different coloured hats. In the group we discussed the aspect allotted to us, noted the points which we can include in our writing. oh, it was so interesting.

Ajay: But we cannot have 6 people always.

Vinay: Ajay, that is the point. This can be done in a group, in pairs or individually too. Only the points put forth will be of specific aspects allotted to the specific coloured hat. 

Ajay: Sounds interesting, But unless I try it, it will not be clear to me. 

Vinay: O.K. Let us put on our (imaginary) hats of different colours and do this.

Let us take the question given by your teacher yesterday and try out de Bono's Six Thinking hats.

Increase in the number of vehicles causes pollution and traffic jams. Write an article in 150-200 words highlighting the urgent need to solve these man-made problems, giving suitable suggestions.

White Hat: Facts and some statistics about increase in the number of vehicles in India and the world. Some more facts about increase in pollution and traffic jams due to this.

Red Hat: What are your feelings about these man-made problems – depressed, unhappy, excited??

Yellow Hat: Benefits. There are benefits of vehicles to individuals, family and the society. Write about these.

Black Hat: Make a list of prominent bad points about increase in vehicles, pollution and traffic jams. What has been done by different agencies till now, for example laws in our country and other governments. Flaws in these laws and how they are not implemented, why is it difficult to implement the laws.

Green Hat: Can these laws be tweaked so that they can be implemented easily. Who else can help eradicate these problems, role of other unconventional agencies like NGOs, students…

Blue Hat: conclusions. And connect your thoughts to the main idea – importance and necessity of sustainable development.

After sometime Ajay and Vinay get the hang of the technique of Six Thinking hats and get many many points for their article.

Next day they discuss it with their English teacher and she is very impressed with their enthusiasm and progress.

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