The ‘Hinge’ Question

Greg Gilbey, Director of Learning at Lincoln Christ’s Hospital School, shares how a drama lesson hinge question helped shift student thinking. His approach offers a practical model for using hinge questions to deepen understanding across subjects.

Question

Your task is to re-enact one person’s memory of the ceremony. Which of these are the best criteria for judging the ceremonies:

1. There will be lots of running, and chasing like they did in the dream and people will be scared and screaming
2. There will be a clear pattern to the movement and there will be a lot of movement that we do at the same time in the same way (synchronised)
3. Everyone will keep straight faces and not laugh
4. Everyone will know what they are doing and will do it without being prompted during the ceremony
5. The clear pattern of movement, the things people say and how they say them will show the audience what the ceremony is about.

Although this is for a drama lesson and is quite specific to drama criteria, I have used the structure to inform what other staff do and to help them with hinge questions. However, it may be that this does not count as a hinge question because of how it is used.

Use

This question follows on from a drama lesson in which the class created a ceremony from a guided fantasy (listened to the story with eyes shut). I asked it at the start of the lesson (not hinge question etiquette) but, it could be argued, the start of the lesson was actually a mid-point in the activity of two lessons. In the previous lesson they had created their ceremonies in two groups and each considered the other in terms of some specific success criteria. However, they all thought the one (which I describe in answer ‘A’) was best. I wanted to adjust their thinking and used the ‘hinge question’ to do so. At the start of the next lesson, therefore, the class answered the register with one of the letters as answers. I find this gives them a reading task as a starter and me less ‘dead time’ doing a register. We returned to the list throughout the lesson, adjusting targets and setting them depending on where they felt their performance was. I had thought that they misunderstood what a ceremony was but they all recognised that ‘E’ was the best answer. Thus, we worked out a way of moving towards creating a piece that did just that and testing it out on an audience.

Formula

I am beginning to use hinge questions as coat hangers – sorry to mix metaphors – that hold up the content of the lesson and the criteria for the lesson. As they are on PowerPoint, they remain a reference point. My formula for creating them is to have a question that:

• Fully answers the question
• Has only the basic criteria to complete a task
• Shows a superficial understanding of the question/statement but lacks depth of understanding
• Describes what the teacher believes is their current position of understanding
• Shows a good but not complete understanding of the question/statement

So, from my example:

1. is a description of their previous understanding
2. shows a good but not complete understanding of the question/statement
3. has only the basic criteria to complete a task
4. shows a superficial understanding of the question/statement but lacks depth of understanding
5. fully answers the question

We then used the same format for a PE lesson and again this seemed to work.