Procedure

1. Provide students with a prompt (e.g., "What is an example of a living thing?" or "What makes someone a good writer?").

2. Ask students to answer this prompt on a sticky note. If students provide multiple answers, each answer should have its own sticky note.

3. Pair up students and have them pool their sticky notes. Invite pairs to find and group similar answers together, then name the categories into which the answers are sorted. For example, students may pair the answers "grizzly bear" and "corgi" into a category they name "mammals."

4. Combine groups and have students combine categories. This might involve pairing pairs, grouping tables together, or similar groupings. Repeat until the whole class forms one large group with an agreed-upon set of themes.