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A Diamond Nine Diagram helps to prioritise and categorise key factors. The most important factors are placed towards the top of the "diamond 9 ". The least important factors are placed towards the bottom. Factors of equal importance are placed in the same row. Each factor can be colour coded for further sophistication.

Stage 1: Brainstorming ideas for the Diamond 9

Individual students identify 9 factors which help to answer the key question. After a few minutes, the teacher "brainstorms" all the ideas onto the board.

Stage 2: Selecting ideas for the Diamond 9

Working individually (if each student has their own computer) or in small groups, students select the nine factors they consider the most important. These are typed into the diamond 9 diagram in no particular order.

Stage 3: Prioritising ideas for the Diamond Nine

Finally, students have to re-arrange the factors in their diagram so that the most important are towards the top, the least important towards the bottom. They explain their reasoning in the "notes" box and then print off / save their work as the basis of a piece of written work.

Stage 4: Categorising [extension]

Students use the "colour picker" tool to colour-code the 9 factors into appropriate categories - for example, social factors could be in red, political in blue and so on.

Stage 5: Concluding

Students should be encouraged to compare their diagrams: for example
(a) The teacher could ask one student to justify why they put a particular factor at the top of the diagram, and another student could then be asked why they placed the same factor at the bottom;
(b) Each member of the class should be asked their "most important" factor. These could be tallied up on the board against individual factors to get an overall "class view". This information could also be used as the basis of a debate.

• Provide all, or some of the factors in advance to students. They merely come up with a few more to fill the blank boxes.
• Provide all 9 factors for consideration, but make three of them incorrect. Students start by deleting these, then replacing them with their own factors.