I couldn’t wait to hear my students dive in and share their thoughts on the reading.īut the next day, every prompt was met with dead silence. The first night, I assigned a story for homework and wrote up some open-ended discussion questions for the next day. My students would absorb my passion for reading, and their writing skills would evolve naturally. We’d have lively discussions about literature. Instead, I envisioned my classroom as a sort of French salon.
My mission was to save students from the tyranny of the worksheet. But I clearly remembered the endless hours I spent as a student, mindlessly filling-in-the-blanks and circling a, b, or c. I still had no idea what a graphic organizer was. I wanted to prove that my students could learn without grammar quizzes and comprehension tests. For instance, main ideas as denoted by Roman numerals are relatively broad, while content following lowercase letters can be quite specific.As a young teacher, fresh out of college, I was eager to challenge the status quo. Outlines flow from general to specific ideas. Whether you are reading a text and want to diagram the main and supporting ideas, or you’re writing your own essay and want to organize your thoughts and ideas beforehand, an outline will help you break everything down into parts using Roman numerals, letters, and numbers. Outlines are another useful graphic organizer. This is a great way to visualize and organize ideas and see how they are all connected. All of the supporting points branch off of this main idea, and even smaller details can branch off of the supporting points. Spider Diagram (Mind Map)Īnother common graphic organizer is a spider diagram, also known as a mind map.Ī spider diagram, or a spider map, takes your main idea or topic and places it in a central bubble. In the end, Venn diagrams are a helpful first step and visual aid when writing comparatively. communism), differences in philosophical ideas, or even different tech products (iPhone vs. Maybe apples and oranges isn’t a suitable topic for a high school or college essay, but a Venn diagram would be a very useful visual aid for comparing and contrasting ideas like different economic systems (capitalism vs. Venn diagrams are particularly useful when writing a compare/contrast essay. Some Venn diagrams contain 3 or 4 circles, having several areas of overlap between topics. This example is of course very simplistic. Yet there are also several similarities: both are fruits, used to make juice, and grow on trees. Oranges, on the other hand, are orange in color, have a rough texture, and grow in warmer climates. Let’s look at a simple example: apples and oranges.Īpples have several different qualities that distinguish them from oranges: they’re (often) red, have smooth skin, and grow in cooler climates. However, qualities shared between the two are listed in the middle overlapping portion. Qualities unique to each idea, concept, or object are listed in their corresponding circles. Placed above each circle is an idea, concept, or object. Venn diagrams consist of two or more overlapping circles.
Let’s look at a few of the different kinds: Venn Diagram Though a graphic organizer may initially seem like a waste of time, its benefits in the long run cannot be overstated. Studies have shown that graphic organizers assist with the retention of information, reading comprehension, student achievement, and critical thinking skills. In this video, we will discuss what, exactly, makes graphic organizers so useful and introduce some commonly used types of graphic organizers. Graphic organizers provide a means by which to construct a visual map of concepts, ideas, and information. Furthermore, remembering concepts, ideas, and information can be difficult. Creating new ideas can be a frustrating task.
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