When students are building a glossary, they are assigning meaning to terms and phrases. Pairing text with images allows concepts to stick better in long-term memory.

Students can build a glossary for the academic vocabulary in a unit of study in science, math, etc. They could also build a glossary for characters in a story, important themes in a text, or locations that are important to an event or story. These tasks could be done throughout a unit or at the end to show their learning and package it for others.

The visual glossary can require students to define words, identify synonyms, create analogies using the words or phrases, and/or make connections to other glossary entries as they communicate meaning to others.

If students work in groups, their collaboration skills can be exercised. They could use paper and pencil or shared digital documents.