Create graphic organizers

Many types of graphic organizers exist online. Use convenient apps to organize your nonfiction or fiction writing.

Use them as a model to organize your work and model it for students. I grew up drawing concept maps for lecture notes and grabbing key ideas from texts. Until I internalized the process, I used them to organize my writing.

Stay tuned for an upcoming blog entry on Google's Cursive, a new app for Chromebooks.

Research, Summarize, Write

Summarizing is the process of keeping what’s relevant and discarding the rest. For bilingual brains, this is one strength to develop.

As a child, I was assigned research papers. I had limited access to encyclopedias. If I wanted access to information at home, I had to take notes on what I read. I kept what was relevant to what I hoped to write. One way to encourage students involves focusing on the main ideas and supporting details.

Get them to write, revise the information, and focus on the relevant. One tool that I use often is Hemingway Editor. It helps cut unnecessary words and shorten ideas.

Chunk Ideas/Writing with headers

Chunking splits information into small pieces. This makes reading and understanding faster and easier.

Students may see a piece of writing as one long narrative. Teach them to write longer pieces. Each piece is assembled in short chunks. Students can apply chunking strategies with these methods:

• Craft short paragraphs.

• Keep sentences short.

• Use bullet or numbered lists.

• Create a visual hierarchy with varying styles of headings and subheadings (Source)

Digital Phrase Walls and Anchor Charts

"Anchor charts are created during the instruction of the lesson” (source). And, ValentinaESL says, "If anchor charts are not being used by students, then they are simply wallpaper" (see her infographic to the right)

A question that comes to mind is “How can we transfer ownership of the anchor charts from the teacher to the students and use technology to generate the chart?”

Here are three approaches to try:

1. Create a Padlet: Although Padlet can be used to create a word wall, you can easily share expectations for what “talking” should sound like simply by having students audio record themselves and share that in the Padlet itself. You can also include other content (e.g. text, video, images). Then make the Padlet available on a device like a digital projector or large screen television/monitor. If working with classroom centers, setting up a computer screen monitor connected to a mobile device will also work.

2. Create a Thinglink: Think of ThingLink as a virtual interactive wall, which makes it great to combine with a large touchscreen monitor.

3. Create an Infographic: Having students create infographics that they can share and then hang on the wall can be very engaging for them. Not only have they recaptured ownership of the anchor/phrase chart, but they are able to pull information from others in the classroom. Each contributes their own part.