The reader
This page is for the student who is about to open a chat window “to get started.” It is also for the adult who will mark the work. It is not a semester map and not a parent briefing. The job here is order: explanation first, tool second, teach-back last.
What “before” means in a real hour
Before means a written card exists while the interface is still closed. The card has four lines. Line 1: what I think is true. Line 2: what I am resting that on (a page, a lab, a definition, or “I do not have a source”). Line 3: what this cannot know. Line 4: what I remain responsible for if someone acts on the sentence. Only after those four lines may the student ask a model to propose wording, examples, or counter-arguments.
If the four lines cannot be written, the tool is not a helper. It is a substitute mind. HNK treats that as the literacy gap. The repair is a clearer human sentence, not a better prompt.
A worked hour, without a product name
Suppose the topic is “why a model can sound sure.” The closed-screen card might read: claim — fluency is not a reliability signal; source — classroom definition of next-token prediction as we have it, plus one limitation note from last week; limit — I have not measured any specific product; duty — I will not tell a younger student that a fluent answer is checked. Then, and only then, the student may generate a rival paragraph and mark where it overclaims.
The assessed object is the marked pair: human card plus generated rival, with circles on decorative words. A clean generated essay with no card is a fail, even if it would impress a stranger.
What mentors may not do
They may not type the four lines. They may not replace a weak student sentence with a smoother generated one and call it feedback. They may ask: which word is decorative? What would make line 1 false? What did you refuse to paste? Those questions keep the work attached to a person.
When a tool is the object of study
A course may open a model on purpose, the way a biology class opens a specimen. The specimen is not the student’s knowledge. After the look, the screen closes and the student teaches the idea back. That is the whole method. It is slow on purpose. The scarce resource is a sentence the student still owns after the screen is closed.
This page is method writing from HNK Institute. It describes a teaching practice. It does not report measured learning gains, partner logos, enrollment dates, or awards. Owner confirmation on 2026-10-04 covers that the practice operates and that info@hnk.org exists; it does not cover any number on this page because this page publishes none.