One way to get learners talking about the emotion cogs is to use a topic they feel passionate about. The 4-part model is great for talking about good feeling events.

In this example the teacher simply initiated a conversation with the child about the football match he was at, and then made notes and plotted out the response on the story board as the child responded to her questioning. She gave a commentary as she went about which column she was putting in the different notes and symbols, involving the child eg. in drawing a picture of a heart with wings.

At the end the teacher re-told the story along the lines of…

“So when your team scored in the last minute to make it 3-2 that was the trigger to a really happy feeling.  You felt excited and delighted. You felt excited in your legs and it made you jump about. And you felt delighted in your throat so you were cheering and shouting. You were so happy it made you cheer and jump about like crazy! Probably your heart was beating fast because you described it like your heart had wings!”

Can you spot the ‘coggle vision’ cog commentary behind the story retelling? Which columns would the teacher or learner be pointing to as she told the story?

“So when your team scored in the last minute to make it 3-2 that was the trigger to a really happy feeling.  You felt excited and delighted. You felt excited in your legs and it made you jump about. And you felt delighted in your throat so you were cheering and shouting. You were so happy it made you cheer and jump about like crazy! Probably your heart was beating really fast because you described it like your heart had wings!“

NB. This is a reproduction of the board that we’ve reconstructed from an account shared by a teacher at one of our practice sharing events. Please send us a photo of a similar board if you have one so we can share it here.