Circle of Viewpoints

A thinking routine for exploring diverse perspectives

Brainstorm a list of different perspectives and then use this script to explore of one:

  • I am thinking of…the topic…from the point of view of…the perspective/viewpoint you’ve chosen.
  • I think…describe the topic from your viewpoint. Be an actor – take on the character of your viewpoint.
  • A Question I have from this viewpoint is…ask a question from this viewpoint.
  • Wrap up: What new ideas do you have about the topic that you didn’t have before? What new questions do you have?

Note: Role playing when discussing race, identity, overt expressions of racial intolerance prejudice are strongly discouraged.

Adapted from: Visible Thinking Project, Project Zero

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© 2019 President and Fellows of Harvard College and Project Zero. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND). This license allows users to share this work with others, but it cannot be used commercially