Chunking · Pattern 5 of 13
Chunk Down — Examples
Move down by naming members or instances of the current class.
Recover: Members and instances
What it is
MANUAL MODEL. The mirror of category chunking. It populates a level: 'transportation' produces buses, boats, cars, planes, trains. It is also the second half of every lateral move — you chunk up to the class, then ask for examples, and choose a different branch than the one you came from.
Recognition / tip-offs
What has been distorted, generalised or deleted
- The class has members
- Naming them makes the level concrete
- Different members afford different moves
Client-language use
“Nothing at work is going well.” Asking for examples turns a global class into a countable set — which is usually smaller than the word 'nothing' implied.
How to challenge it
Ask for several, not one. The spread is the information.
- “What are examples of this?”
- “What else would count as one of those?”
- “Give me three.”
Practitioner judgement: challenge what is useful, not every pattern you can hear.
What to recover
Use it to populate a hierarchy, to open a lateral move, and to break a large goal into visible units.
Client autonomy first — offer language the client can verify and decline.
Examples
““Transportation.” → “What are examples?” → “Buses, boats, cars, planes, trains.””
Missing The manual's same-level sibling set.
Common confusion and overlap
- Accepting one example and moving on
- Collecting examples that are parts, not members
- Confusing 'an example of' with 'similar to'
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