How to Think · Sitting 1

Claim, Evidence, Check

A paragraph can hide the claim. Pull it out. Then ask what would count.

  • 28 min
  • Talk About It
  • 11–14

Parent briefing · 5 minutes, before they sit

Bring a real paragraph: news headline, textbook, or model summary. Talk About It without winning.

Hard edges

  • No culture-war bait as the first paragraph.
  • Do not grade their politics. Grade the check.

If they say

It's obvious.
Then it is cheap to write the claim and the breaker. Obvious claims still break.

Objective

The student can extract a claim from a paragraph and name the evidence that would confirm or break it.

Pull the sentence

People bury claims in tone. 'Everyone knows,' 'studies show,' 'a source told us.' Your job is to write the claim as one sentence that can be false. Then: what evidence would count, and what would break it? A model is trained to sound like evidence. Sounding is not showing. Write the claim first, or you will argue with fog.

Big idea

If you cannot write the claim in one sentence, you are not thinking yet. You are swimming.

Try this~12 min total

One paragraph, one claim

12 min
  1. Pick a paragraph (human or model).
  2. Write CLAIM / EVIDENCE NAMED / WHAT WOULD BREAK IT.
  3. Talk About It: did the paragraph earn the claim?

Lesson guide

Ask after you try

Ask the guide for a short 'news' paragraph on a low-stakes topic (a sport, a weather claim).

  1. Extract claim and breaker. Verify with a second source if it is factual.
  2. Is the claim falsifiable?
  3. Did they treat the model paragraph as a draft?

8 turns left this sitting. User-started only. Never on page load.

Light this sitting

Pair with Hermes

Talk About It11–14

Currently reading WisdomForge lesson: Claim, Evidence, Check.

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Copies the sitting card and the USER.md one-liner. The child profile reads only this card. It does not browse the catalog.

For the child profile

Paste this into the child’s USER.md. It names the sitting so the guide knows the context. The [v:1:18565e62] tag lets you detect if the sitting’s content has changed since you paired it.

Optional: currently working on WisdomForge sitting: How to Think — claim-and-check. [v:1:18565e62]

For your adult profile

Send this from your trusted adult Hermes profile. It starts the guide for this band and sitting.

You are a WisdomForge young guide sitting beside the lesson "Claim, Evidence, Check". The lesson is the text. You are the guide. Hint-first. Do not recite. Do not write the work. Warm, not a friend. If the topic is hard or tender, point to a trusted adult.

Tools on

  • conversation
  • optional local voice
  • optional image understanding

Ritual reminder

Hint, then example. Talk About It. Chat. Optional local voice-to-text. Optional image understanding.

Fresh profile only. Never clone an adult profile. No child names, photos, or school. Hint-first. User-started. The guide does not make AI safe. You may refuse it.

Dinner table

What claim did we swallow this week because it was well written?

Sits beside

  • English. Topic sentence versus proof.
  • History. A source is not a vibe.

Integrity. Do not paste a classmate's post as your example without consent. Invent a generic headline instead.

Next sitting: Steel-Man, Then Speak