njcssjournal

Memory and Notemaking

Note-making is active writing.  Students are given formats or frames which organize thinking and hence notemaking.

Learning More Quickly and Forgetting More Slowly

Regardless of what social studies course we teach, World History, World Cultures, US History, Geography, or any of the social sciences;

Regardless of what academic level we teach, AP, honors, college prep, basic, special education or bilingual/esl:

Regardless of whether we teach live on line or in-person;

Regardless of how we teach, direct instruction “listen to me and do as I say”, cooperative inquiry groups of independent digital assignments;

All teachers need and want their students to achieve more and forget less. The key to this process is using four academic literacy skills.

A. Gather and organize information from print, visual, and data sources

B. Process this information through thinking and reasoning

C. Store, retain, and rehearse the information through memory

D. Produce thought in writing, speech or through the creative actions of drama, art, music, and movement.

Following are three ideas that will assist students in Memory skills. But before we begin examining these activities let’s consider 3 Nos. There will be NO “taking” notes. We will “make” thoughts or notes. Use NO notebooks. We will give students or show them how to make special notemaking paper. Finally, save money. Buy NO notebooks!

Illustration #1 is used for reading assignments. Create and distribute this illustration to students using standard size paper. If available use different colors for different marking periods. Colors enhance memory. Let’s examine #1. Top Center the Y=yesterday, what did we study yesterday? Note it. The T is for Today. Note today’s topic. Notes are made on the numbered lines. Key vocabulary, people, events, dates, ideas etc. are noted. Critical questions are copied or created.

On the right side are 3-line graphs: the topic, event, cause, effect triangle, the Venn Diagram for comparison/contrast within a given topic and a single chronology date line to capture key dates.

On the bottom of the notemaking paper is a review section. Note the KEY on the lower left side. What is the key or unlocking ideas of the reading/research assignment? Note them below the KEY. What does the student NEED to know and DO? Write it down! What am I curious about? What is the next assignment?

Towards the bottom of the page are review end of class note boxes. The most important is the MY DAY. In this box note the weather, clothing worn, food eaten, or anything special in the student’s life that day. Personal memory must be linked tri academic study. The other boxes are self-evident. What is my next reading/writing assignment? What must I remember from this class and what Must I do for the class? The open space if for ideas from the teacher or student.

The notemaking page ends with a review section completed at home and turned in to the teacher. These reactions give feedback information to the teacher and can guide future classes.

Finally, look at the upper right of the illustration and find the words Use Colors. Ask students at the start of the year to buy a 4-color pen. Use it in class or for review. Here’s how it works.

Original notes are done in black. Green is used in review. Green=growth. Red is used to locate confusion. Red=danger. Blue is for clarity or I understand. Blue-clear in my mind as in a blue sky. Colors focus study and enhance memory. Use them.

This technique uses eight one-half by fourteen size paper. But it can be done on standard paper. It is used for assigned readings or research. Illustration #1 is used in an active class learning situation. The notemaking paper has a Text Reading Chart with vocabulary extensions to the left. The text reading chart has an area to note page locations. The illustration uses a visual flow chart to organize information and question “stems” to note questions and answers found in the reading.

Illustration #2

On the bottom of the notemaking paper is a review section. Note the KEY on the lower left side. What is the key or unlocking ideas of the reading/research assignment? Note them below the KEY. What does the student NEED to know and DO? Write it down! What am I curious about? What is the next assignment?

As you examine these 2 illustrations ask ourselves these questions. What do our student notebooks now look like? What is their current value? Can we try one of these illustrations in one of our classes and see how they work toward achieving our goal: learning more quickly and forgetting more slowly.

Now, lets’ go to another activity used in reading articles. Not all reading is text or document reading. Reading occurs in different formats. Oh, yes! Those of us who use digital texts and not books are still using texts. The word “text” is from Latin meaning “threads”. When we use digital devices, they are still using text which live as pixels behind the screen.

Illustration #3 is used by students when reading a NEWS ARTICLE or an essay from a periodical. The notemaking elements are self-evident. Remember ask students to use the 4 colors and somewhere on the paper note something about an event in their life, the food they just ate, the clothing they are wearing, or even how they feel. Private memory and academic memory link and help the academic emerge when students take exams, write, or speak.

     Finally, use the notemaking paper in phased practice reviews after classes and require that they turn in samples of their notemaking paper with exams. Give the finished notes credit. You can even ask them to create their own exams or add to yours using their notes. Reward successful practice as well as content mastery.

Creating Memory Using Visual Palates

Academic Literacy has 4 elements: gathering and organizing information, thinking/reasoning, building useable memory, and producing thought. Visual palates help build visual memory. They create a video tape or CD of a particular content topic.

Illustration #1 describes the range of visual palates and their functions. At the bottom of the page there are 10 types on a spectrum from abstract symbols such as an arrow to realistic photographs. Visuals act a metaphor for both content information and a particular dominant thinking skill used when students encounter the content. Teachers locate and reproduce the visual palate on standard size 8 ½ x 11 paper although they can also be used on larger paper. Each student is given a visual palate. They are used in class, for assignments, or as test items.

American History Thinking Skills – Notemaking and Visuals: Tools for Improved Achievement

Illustration #2 lists the types of thinking skills used in our courses. Several may occur in a single class or assignment but normally one or two will dominate learning.

Illustration #3 is our first visual palate. It is line drawing of a tree embedded in soil. The major content focus is preprinted on the trunk of the tree. As students listen, read, watch videos they will make notes or begin to PAINT the visual palate. Let’s examine the 7 sections in the visual.

1. Upper left corner there are 3 Ts. Students make notes on each. The first is the TOPIC, the facts of who/where/when/what the second is the THEME or thread that runs through the entire learning topic. The third is the THESIS or argument that drives our inquiry. This is the triple T

2. In the upper right are sections that link the visual to text pages and the date when learning first occurred.

3. The trunk depicts the content topic. Below the trunk are the roots or CAUSES of the topic. Extending out from the trunk are branches which become the EFFECTS of the topical events. Students make their notes on the many roots and branches. Some roots and branches are primary and some are secondary or minor.

4. Key vocabulary is isolated to the left of the roots and key questions are noted at (5) to the right of the roots.

5. At the very bottom of the palate is a time or chronology line. Students note critical dates.

6. This visual thinking area might have a Venn Diagram for compare and contrast or a star for an important person.

     In the extreme right corner are 3 memory builders. Colors, use a 4-color pen on a palate. Black is for critical notes, red is for confusing ideas and hence dangerous, green is for notes we make when studying and represents growth, and blue is for ideas we clearly see like a sky blue. We can also attach postal notes or stickums to the paper. They focus the eyes. Finally, we must note something that personally occurred to us on that day. It might be the weather, the food we ate, the clothing we have, the shoes we wear, or how we feel. Connect the personal to the academic learning. The personal will rehearse or ignite the academic when we study or when we want to write or speak.

     All visual palates have the same elements. Illustration #4 shows a clock with attached sticks of dynamite. This visual is used for revolution, American, French, Civil War, Nazi Germany, USSR 1917, Mao’s China, Castro in Cuba etc. As students learn they paint the palate with their 4-color pen. The dynamite=causes. The clock hours=events. 

     So, what to do? If we like the visual palate idea try it with only one class. When? try the last class of the day. Do something different. If it works the day ends well. If it does not get out of school, turn on the radio, and go home. If we use new ideas early in a day and they do not work they often leave an aftertaste in the mind and air since students will tell one another that the teacher is doing something weird today.

Limit creativity to the margins of our daily school life. We are already doing a good job. We are not working from a deficit. Visual palates can be used in any course, with any student type, and within any instructional/learning study. They can be used in class, for assignments, or on tests. We need to show them how to use them, permit them to use them in small groups, and then ask students to practice independently. They have one goal increase faster learning and slow the relentless decay of memory.

When we announce an exam and want students to study their notes what do these notes now look like? If they have created visual palates, they use them. They are videos and aural recordings of their learning.

The Knowledge Map.  (KM)

The KM is a specially designed 8 ½ X 14 paper used when a class has a long unit or chapter that might go for 10 or even 15 classes.  The content might be a long chronology or complex series of events.  KMs may be used in any subject and are especially useful learning and memory tools in AP classes which are both fast-paced and intensive.

     This is how a KM is created.  Get legal-size paper.  Step I-Identify the content topics you want students to investigate.  The topics might be people, events, or ideas.  Our example shows a teacher KM with 20 topics.  Step 2-arrange the topics in a flow chart and number each one.  Step 3-decide a flow chart type.  There are 3.  

        A, The “completed” or fully clothed chart showing names of all topics.

         B.  The “naked” or incomplete flow chart showing empty chart spaces that students will fill in during the unit.

         C.  The “checker board” chart in which random spaces are filled in by the teacher and others are left empty for later student work.

Give the one you choose to students at the start of the unit or chapter.  Tell them they will be used throughout the unit and turned in with all quizzes or exams.  They are given credit for completed KMs.

Illustrations 1-2-3 show the topic list, a naked KM, and a completed KM.

Illustration #2 – A ‘Naked” Knowledge Map

 KMs are used in 3 class learning times, these are at the start of a class to review and preview, during a class as a “time out” or integration moment, or at the end of a class as a “wrap it up” final one or two minutes.   They can also be used for assignment notemaking or test preparation.  They replace notes in a notebook.  They integrate many learning days and different forms of learning.  

Following are 13 tips for using KMs.  Pick a few and try them.

1.  If you can, create the KM on colored paper.  It is harder to lose.  Make friends with art teachers.  They may have a ream.
2. Organize the class into teams of 3 or 4.  If a student is absent, they can share work on their phones or in class.  
3. On each chart area note the date the topic was first studied.  
4. On each chart box note the page number in the text where this information is located.
5. To the left of each box note a question (Q) about the topic.  The ? may come from the teacher or is student created.  Interact with the topic!
6. To the right of the topic note an associated vocabulary word or date (V) Again, interact and extend learning.
7. Use a 4-colored pen.  Black for original notes.  Green for review or growth notes.  Red for confusion and danger.  Blue for “I understand this.”  Study the red and green.

8. Create a chronology or time line at the bottom of the KM.
9. Notes which topics are homework or project assignments and their due dates,
10. Get some post-it “stickums” of different colors and attach them to different chart topics you want to emphasize.
11. Sketch visual graphics on the chart such as a STAR for an important person or a VENN diagram for compare/contrast thinking.
12. Occasionally make notes about your personal life on the chart:  the weather, food you ate, clothing you wear, videos you saw etc.  Merge the personal with the academic.
13. Anywhere on the chart write old exam questions on the chart.   

      There are five learning principles embedded in KMs

1.  Spaced time-interval review.
2.  Self-inquiry
3.  Short quizzes or tests review and response
4.  Using colors
5.  Merging personal memory with academic memory

      Try a KM in one course in one class.  Determine if that class has a greater grasp of complex content when compared to another class.  Consider using the KM the last of the day.  Often student athletes or club members may be absent for special events.  Their team members can keep them up to date until they return to class.

     One teacher uses the KM on a test review day.  The teacher creates a completed KM and then cuts it into many pieces and puts them into an envelope which is given to a team.  The team opens the envelop and has to reconstruct the KM and justify their thinking.  

      Learning more quickly and forgetting more slowly is our goal.  The KM is one tool we can use.  A middle school might use a smaller KM with 10 topics.  A high school class might have 20.  A complex AP unit might have 30.  KMs are used in any teaching or learning style, in a room with desks or tables or lined with individual computers.  The KM integrates content, time, and a variety of teaching materials into a single memory device.  

Academic Literacy

Dr. Harry Stein, Manhattan College

Academic Writing (AW) has 7 Elements. 

They are RW recognizing writing, copying, note-making, RD or redesigned writing, composition, media writing, and website design. 

Element #5 composition is divided into styles and scales.  Styles refers to narrative, descriptive, expository, and point of view writing.  Scale refers to sentences, paragraphs, MP or multiple paragraphs, E or essays, and RP research papers.  During the course of an academic year students should practice all styles and scales.

The 7 AW writing elements are practiced in three settings:  the classroom, assignments, and on tests. 

Illustration #2 shows the relationship between five literacy skills. 

Writing is the most difficult because it cannot occur without gathering and organizing information, critical thinking, and memory.  Writing is both a product and a process of learning.  It is slowly and consistently developed over an entire year.

Academic Writing Skill #1  Recognizing Writing

Illustrations #3 ABC shows three examples of this skill.  They are teacher developed and used in CAT, the classroom, assignments, or on tests.

Stop!  Wait!  A teacher will ask how and when do I have the time to create these activities for my classes.  I am busy with 5 sections and 100-125 students.  My commercial supplemental materials do not have these examples.  A problem!  Yes, but solvable. 

Consider the following tactics.
1.  Before February ask your supervisor to budget a summer staff development time for you to to create these lessons.
2.  If you are told there is no money ask the supervisor to eliminate your school duty period in the next year and let you use the period to develop the activities which you will offer to other faculty.  This effort becomes your duty. Do this before a master schedule is created with supervisory assignments.
3.  If you cannot get a duty release ask the supervisor to approach a parent group for an initiative grant for a summer effort.
4.  Most districts require that faculty create an improvement plan for the following year.  Let AW activity development become your plan and during the coming school year occasionally ask your supervisor for released time during a school day to create the activities.  Schools have money for daily subs and period coverage.

Academic Writing Skill #2:  Copying

Copying is notetaking.  Think of copying as Xerox reproduction.  This is a critical skill.  It is unrecognized. Copying occurs in two ways:  we listen and reproduce or we read and reproduce.  At the end of a period take three or four minutes for a copying activity.  Find a critical sentence or two in a reading.  Ask students to get paper/pen ready.

Read aloud.  Stop!  Give them a paper copy of what you said or refer them to a text page.  Did they get it right? You may have an old overhead projector and could show them the passage they just heard.  Discuss the sentence.

Some teachers ask students to read a short passage and copy it.  Sometimes, even though the passage is in front of their eyes they fail to replicate it because copying requires careful attention and precise effort.

Note-making is active writing.  Students are given formats or frames which organize thinking and hence notemaking.

Illustration #6 is a standard chart used in an International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge course.  As students read or learn in class they fill in the chart.

      Another chart form is called a triple screen.  Students are given an 8 1/2 X 11 paper and told to fold it vertically into 3 columns. The left column is labeled reading notes, the middle column is called class discussion, and the right-side column is called review notes.  A four-color pen is used.  Reading notes are in black.  Class discussion notes are in blue for clear understanding and red for confusing ideas.  Green is used for the final column.  Green shows growth or change incurred during the review.

      Illustration #7 depicts two techniques used when studying an important person or group.  In this example we used George Washington.  The Inquiry Chart is self-explanatory.  The character analysis chart was originally used in a literature class.  Eliminate the word MARTIN and substitute GEORGE WASHINGTON and we have a Character Analysis Chart.  Both tactics, CAT, are used in the classroom, for assignments, or as a testing challenge.

     Illustration #8 is called a “story chain.”  This example is from a literature class.  History teachers would create their own story chain word series.  Using the chain students in class or on a reading assignment expand or extend the words in the story chain into a larger narrative or series of events.  See the example of French and Indian War. 

      As we examine these note-making frames or palates they have one trait.  We do not ask or tell students to “take notes.” We provide them with an organizing frame.  They use it as a painting palate brushing in their thoughts.

     Illustration #9 is a visual icon frame.  There are 11 content thought patterns.  Examine #7 Main Idea/Detail.  Students are given a four circle visual.  The central and smallest circle is main idea.  Students make an arrow into the small circle and print the main idea on arrow.  The other circles are details or outer ideas.  #11 is a football field.  At each end are goal lines.  The names of one or another group are printed on the lines and an arrow is extended from the group toward and across their goal line.  When a student studies the goals of the North or South in the Civil War, they study a football field with notes.  #1 is called a Reverse 7.  On the top at left 7 we see the word Federalist and at the top of the inverted 7 we see the word Antifederalist.  They are facing off looking at one another.  Notes are made below each figure.  The gap between them is a note room for their differences.  Visual icons are powerful ways to organize thinking and their results.

Illustration #10 is a “time out” device one teacher developed to develop see/search/think/note skills.  Try it even though it may not fit your exact lesson content.  Students may learn a little Chinese!

Academic Writing #5 – Composing

The next type of academic writing is composing.  Composing has two features, styles and scale or quantity of words.  In general, the first composing efforts should be short and simple sentences and paragraphs.  Don’t assign complex essays or research papers early in a term.  English teachers may tell us that students know how to write.  This is not the issue.  They do not have content mastery in our subject.  They may not understand the natural logic or continuity of academic learning.  So, start short and simple gradually moving toward extended multiple paragraph and essay writing in the second or even third marking periods.

Qualify the above statement.  With high achieving AP or IB classes move more quickly.  They need rapid and continual work in short answer essays, open-ended longer essays, the DBQ form essay.  Their examination is in mid-May.  Time is short.  Demands are long.  

Adopt a composing plan for each 9 week marking period.

Follow it ending with research papers.  Research is a year long achievement but gradually escalate the size from a simple paragraph to more extensive works.  

Illustration #15 shows an example of sentence writing and an outline of different paragraph types.  The sentence example is called “Right-write” to the point.  Have students place their pen on a paper and draw an outline of its shape.  Go to the back of the pen and begin to write a sentence about an assigned topic ending at the point of the pen.  The visual forces students to very carefully limit their thinking to a few precise words in their response.  The sentence can be narrative, descriptive, expository, or point of view. Just write to the point.  Brevity is beauty.

On the left side of the illustration are six organizational patterns.  At the bottom is a writing space.  One metaphor used in many schools is the “hamburger” approach.  The top of the bun is the topic sentence or claim.  In the middle is the evidence with salt, pepper, mustard, or ketchup as details.  The bottom of the bun is the ending. Hamburger writing can be used in the classroom for assignments, or on tests.

Illustration #16 is a multiple paragraph assignment.  AP exams in world, European, and American history require SAQs or short answer questions.  Within the SAQ format they use an ACE technique.  A=a direct answer to the prompt.  C=how the writer defines and describes their claim in the answer.  E=explain your choice of the claim and logically connect your claim to relevant historical developments.  In short, bring more information to the SAQ.  The multiple paragraph challenge makes a claim, provides evidence, and ends with commentary.  3 examples of SAQs follow.  They were presented at an AP professional development program in Tampa, Florida.

    Before examining them take a look at the essay questions you have assigned.  Now, examine A B C D.

Illustration #17 has 4 essay examples:  A B C D

How do they compare or contrast with our work?  Look for clear, precise, linear directions. What does the end product look like?  What is the font size in the directions.

Are due or progress dates clear?  What are expectations for A quality work?  Have you posted examples of A quality work from previous years?  What is the essay worth in computing semester grades? When is the teacher available for individual help?   Set the context.  Ask students to locate the dictionary definition of the French word “essay.”  

     The final type of essay is the DBQ or document-based questions.  See illustration #18. This DBQ has 5 documents.  Creating DBQs is extremely hard and time-consuming.  Teachers get them from AP, IB, State agencies, or commercial sources. Except for AP courses, they should be assigned well into a course.  Responding to a DBQ requires both integrated knowledge from the course and the documents and powerful synthesis writing skills.  An inclass DBQ can be assigned to a cooperating group or an individual.  

     What does a good DBQ response read like.  Illustration #19 is a reading sheet given to teachers who read AP DBQs.  The notes were made by the author.  This DBQ has 10 documents.  Current DBQs are 6 or 7.

This DBQ was graded on a scale of 0-1 to 8-9.  The average DBQ score in this reading from 2007 was slightly over a 3. An 8-9 score occurred in less than 5% of the papers.  Illustration #20 shows a English language State testing rubric.  It is not designed for DBQs but may be useful in grading the DBQ.

2. determine the audience or target for the message,

      The research paper is the final type of composing.

In a middle or high school the format for these papers normally comes from the English Department.  In a few schools the format may be cooperative merging social studies and even science teachers in a joint effort.

       The research paper involves style conventions such as bibliographies and footnoting.  These are always taught by English faculty.  We need to carefully consult with our colleagues.  We can not assign research papers and assume students know how to follow style conventions.  We have to coordinate the timing of our research papers with their instruction and practice.  This is complicated and one reason why research papers almost always occur toward the end of a course.  

Academic Writing #4 – Media Writing and Website Design

Media writing is the very opposite of linear, left to right composition.  Media writing has 3 planning elements:

1. pick a medium or carrier of a message,

3. decide on the quantity of information in the message.  

Two quick examples:  what word messages about the causes of the American Revolution might be printed on a T shirt or a cup or an advertising billboard.  A tee shirt can not carry an essay.  The message has to be short and direct.

Illustration #21 shows a chain.  The chain is a set of interlocking parts and is especially suited to showing events, their causes, and effects.  The chain is the medium and notes are appended to each side of the chain.  This example uses a “triple T” organizer in the upper left where the student notes their topic, theme, and thesis claim.  

Beth Isenberg was a 7^th grade teacher in the Yonkers Public School system.  She chose the medium of a cup to show FDR’s plan to remake American society during the Depression.  Illustration #22 shows a draft of her media writing. Note the “triple T” in the upper right and a time line at the bottom of the page.  

Ms. Isenberg used this cup media writing in 3 dimensions, the classroom, the assignment or on a test.  She gave students the cup and they had to put the pieces together.

Ms. Isenberg’s class also used the chain medium.

The final type of writing is website design.  Instead of asking students to compose an essay or research paper on a given topic ask them to create a website.  How?, they will ask.  Go to your IT person in the building or district and discuss your project with her/him.  Invite them into the class after you have had students go to one of their favorite sites and analyse the type of information at the site.  Did the site contain words, how many?  Did the site have data, pictures, or icons.  Did the site carry sound?  What colors or shapes were used?  Were vocabulary featured?  All web sites have design features and before we make one using history content students have to see their design features.

With the help of an IT person and planning the web site assignment over a long period of time we can begin to introduce new writing forms to our students.  All writing is symbol making.  When we underline or circle we are are writing.  When we star a word we are writing.  Writing is more than composing.  Writing occurs when we take our private thoughts and make them public.  Reading is symbol absorption.  Writing is symbol production.  Reading is silent and private.  Writing takes our private thoughts and proclaims them to an audience.  Writing is a risk-taking venture.  We expose ourselves to the critical eye or “I” of another person.  When we ask students to write they need the confidence of their own thoughts.

Finally, Illustration #23 shows a planning chart for academic writing.  It is broken into MP or marking periods, an MY exam (mid-year exam) and a final exam.  The chart enables the teacher to plan and record the types of writing activities for the entire year.  A similar chart can easily be constructed for a 9 week marking period.  The CATs strategy is noted enabling the teacher to place the activity in the C= classroom  A=assignment or T=the test.

A set of academic writing beliefs concludes the chart.

Conclusion

     Academic Literacy is not only an idea it is a series of social studies teaching and learning activities for our classrooms, assignments, and evaluations.  We need to link these activities to four other mandated ideas that affect teachers and students.  These are school district mandated planning procedures, the mandated observation and evaluation of teachers, required teacher professional development, and the general philosophies that guide education in the fifty states and 12,000 public school districts.

     Illustration #1 is a weekly Academic Literacy Planning chart.  It is a supplement to normal district plans that call for the identification of State standards, content teaching/learning objectives, selection of materials, and assessment.

     This planning chart identifies the four major elements in Academic Literacy, gathering and organizing information (I and II) critical thinking (III and IV) memory (V) and Writing (VI).  Using the Activities Handbook teachers can identify which activities they might use as students interact with content materials.

      At the bottom of the chart is a section showing how social studies teachers might coordinate with other faculty members.  Some students also go the remedial reading and writing teachers. NCLB, NO Child Left Behind or Title I) staff.  Some go to ELL staff, English language literacy.  If they know what content is being taught in a social studies class they can find similar content and use it for their skill objectives.  The inclass support teacher is assigned to be with special education students mainstreamed in a social studies class.

      Illustration #2 shows the commonly used Danielson theory for teacher observation and evaluation.  Academic Literacy activities are part of Domain 3 Instruction.  

      Illustration #3 is a framework for creating a permanent professional learning community in a school or district.

      Finally, Academic Literacy is always a tool in carrying out an educational belief.  The Aims of Education thinking of Eugene Maleska offers a wide variety of choices.    

Media Writing and Website Design

Dr. Harry Stein, Manhattan College

Media writing is the very opposite of linear, left to right composition.  Media writing has 3 planning elements:

1. pick a medium or carrier of a message,

3. decide on the quantity of information in the message.  

Two quick examples:  what word messages about the causes of the American Revolution might be printed on a T shirt or a cup or an advertising billboard.  A tee shirt can not carry an essay.  The message has to be short and direct.

Illustration #21 shows a chain.  The chain is a set of interlocking parts and is especially suited to showing events, their causes, and effects.  The chain is the medium and notes are appended to each side of the chain.  This example uses a “triple T” organizer in the upper left where the student notes their topic, theme, and thesis claim.  

Beth Isenberg was a 7^th grade teacher in the Yonkers Public School system.  She chose the medium of a cup to show FDR’s plan to remake American society during the Depression.  Illustration #22 shows a draft of her media writing. Note the “triple T” in the upper right and a time line at the bottom of the page.  

Ms. Isenberg used this cup media writing in 3 dimensions, the classroom, the assignment or on a test.  She gave students the cup and they had to put the pieces together.

Ms. Isenberg’s class also used the chain medium.

Academic Writing – Website Design

The final type of writing is website design.  Instead of asking students to compose an essay or research paper on a given topic ask them to create a website.  How?, they will ask.  Go to your IT person in the building or district and discuss your project with her/him.  Invite them into the class after you have had students go to one of their favorite sites and analyse the type of information at the site.  Did the site contain words, how many?  Did the site have data, pictures, or icons.  Did the site carry sound?  What colors or shapes were used?  Were vocabulary featured?  All web sites have design features and before we make one using history content students have to see their design features.

With the help of an IT person and planning the web site assignment over a long period of time we can begin to introduce new writing forms to our students.  All writing is symbol making.  When we underline or circle we are are writing.  When we star a word we are writing.  Writing is more than composing.  Writing occurs when we take our private thoughts and make them public.  Reading is symbol absorption.  Writing is symbol production.  Reading is silent and private.  Writing takes our private thoughts and proclaims them to an audience.  Writing is a risk-taking venture.  We expose ourselves to the critical eye or “I” of another person.  When we ask students to write they need the confidence of their own thoughts.

Finally, Illustration #23 shows a planning chart for academic writing.  It is broken into MP or marking periods, an MY exam (mid-year exam) and a final exam.  The chart enables the teacher to plan and record the types of writing activities for the entire year.  A similar chart can easily be constructed for a 9 week marking period.  The CATs strategy is noted enabling the teacher to place the activity in the C= classroom  A=assignment or T=the test.

A set of academic writing beliefs concludes the chart.

Academic Literacy: Critical Thinking and Reasoning

Dr. Harry Stein, Manhattan College

Academic Literacy has one goal:  learn more quickly and forget more slowly.  Learning has four elements:  gathering and organizing information, critical thinking (CT) and reasoning, memory/retention, and creating thought through writing, speaking, and creative acts in art, music, dance, and drama.  

    How can we describe and define critical thinking?  There is no single, agreed upon definition.  Critical thinking has different components including recognizing information and assumptions, accurate evaluation of ideas and comprehending how conclusions are reached.   Critical thinking should consistently be practiced in school and used in everyday life.  

    Reasoning is more defined.  If thinking is a mind’s highway then reasoning is the curves. ups and downs, and directions the highway takes.  There are five kinds of reasoning:  inductive, deductive, metaphorical, analogistic, and syllogistic.  The first two are most practiced in academic settings.  For example, if we ask students to discuss the affirmed generalization “Lincoln saved the Union” and then ask students for evidence we are practicing deductive reasoning.  We have a true statement and are now providing the facts and ideas as the foundation for the statement.  In inductive reasoning we would ask students to assemble random facts and ideas and then ask what generalization do they prove.  

    In 2007 the National Institute for Literacy published the guidebook “What Content Area Teachers Should Know About Adolescent Literacy.”  An introduction stated that “adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st. Century will read and write more than at any time in human history.  They will need advanced levels of literacy to perform their jobs, run their households, act as citizens, and conduct their personal lives.”  Academic literacy extends this focus of literacy beyond print to many forms of visual and quantitative learning.  The flood of modern information is not restricted to print.  Images and data are critical.  Writing is critical but for others producing thought in art, music, dance, and dramatic forms is their way of responding to information.

   If we can agree that critical thinking is an important learning achievement mental processing act once we have gathered and organized information.  How do teachers and different students start this critical thinking process?  The critical thinking will be later stored and produced as our writing, speaking, or creative response to information.  

    Illustration #1 is a visualized chart showing the critical thinking process.  Every student is given a copy.  Large copies are mounted on the classroom walls.  Part of our dilemma in thinking is that it is a silent and hidden process.  If we are asked to read or see we use our eyes.  When we are asked to think we do not have self-directed tools.  How do I think?  The chart makes the idea tangible to the eye.  The letters A B C D show the four types of thinking skills.  The skills are circled.  Questions are the matches that ignite or fire-up the thinking skill target. 

There are four thinking targets: 

1. recognition and recall of explicit information,
2. understanding,
3. creating new ideas
4. arriving at judgments and opinions.

There are three types of understanding skills: 

1. interpretation,
2. application, and
3. analysis. 

     Illustration #1 can be used by a teacher in planning content knowledge objectives.  It can be used in classroom or assignment questions. If students take State tests, IB exams or AP exams the visual can be used to analyze the types and frequency of questions on these external examinations.   Finally, it can be used when designing a school quiz or test. 

     Often, parents want to discuss a student’s achievement.  If assignments and tests follow the A B C D elements in the visual, student results can be quickly identified by thinking skill.  High achievement students consistently think at the C D level after they have mastered A B levels.  Some students never elevate their thinking beyond factual recognition and recall. Their test results and assignments do not rise to the B C D level.  These levels become achievement goals.  When students can “see” their thinking results and goals, they can consciously reflect on what a C or an A student means, Illustration #2 is a chart that identifies thinking skills and the questions we use to ignite the skill.

     When students can “see” their thinking results and goals, they can consciously reflect on what being a C or an A student means.  Illustration #2 is a chart that identifies thinking skills and the questions we use to ignite the skill. 

Illustration #3 is another question taxonomy.  Stress with students the difference between the thinking skill target and the question arrow.  Once they practice with our question they can create their own questions or even an examination using the menu of illustrations 2 and 3. Students learn to think about thinking.         

      We have now defined critical thinking and examined visual examples showing the relationships between Critical thinking and questions.  Critical thinking occurs within a class setting. 

What are the teaching tactics which will help us reach our Critical thinking strategical goal?  One strategy from Robert Marzano is applied to a single sentence classroom reading.  See Illustration #4. 

Marzano asks the class to respond to the question “Under some circumstances may the end justify the means?”  Students may read or listen to the question.  He then lists 16 possible ways the teacher can activate student thinking by direct questions or asking students to create their own question responses to the statement.  

       In Illustration #5, Robert Stahl of Arizona State University developed a multistep question approach to questions centering on values and moral education.  When encountering information, print, visual, or quantitative, Stahl took students through four critical thinking actions: 

Knowing,

Thinking,

Valuing,

Feeling. 

For each stage he used certain specific questions.  To know requires explicit evidence yielding precise facts.  He used “I see it there” focus questions.  Then he asked students researching for implicit evidence.        

Stahl used two question tactics.  “Define” and “restate in your own words.”  To focus on values relating to critical thinking, he asked students to compare and contrast and finally he used questions summarizing, concluding, or clarifying that helped students make judgments.

       Dr. Sylvia Gaylor gives us some concluding advice in her article MASTERING THE ART OF QUESTIONING,  Illustration #6

       Two examples of deductive reasoning follow.  The first called J line or Judgment Thinking is by an American Studies middle school teacher Jay Wordsman (Valley Middle School, Oakland NJ). The activity in Illustration #7 has 4 elements:

        A.  Assign a reading-The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.

        B.  Following the reading students are given a response form called J Line containing six statements.

        C.  Students are asked to read the statement and consider its validity remembering evidence about each statement. Using the Judgment Line they circle one of the responses A B C D E F G writing a few words above the letter noting their evidence.

         D.  Finally, the defend each of their six choices in a sentence.

The final example of deductive reasoning is from the Massachusetts Department of Education, Illustration #8. 

It lists four conclusions from a Columbus reading and asks students to evaluate the strength or weakness in the conclusion.

Critical thinking and reasoning are the second element in Academic Literacy.  These skills are used in the classroom, for assignments and in evaluation.  By its very nature thinking is hidden and silent.  We need to visualize it and engage students using the visuals so that private thinking becomes public discussion.

ACADEMIC LITERACY: DEFINING THE BIG SHORT

Dr. Harry Stein, Manhattan College

American students are in school for thirteen disconnected years.  In grades K-5 students learn in a reading/language arts/mathematics skill-based school.  Most students have one classroom teacher.  Literacy means reading and language arts, a term that combines writing, speaking, and listening.  Testing assesses reading, language arts skills, and occasionally writing short compositions.

Then a change occurs in grade 6.  Students go to a ‘second” school.  This is a middle or junior high school with departments.  Teacher certifications and expectations change.  Every day students will now see six or seven teachers.  Except for the language arts teacher these teachers do not teach literacy.  They use it as one tool to achieve their academic goals.  These schools, grades 6-12, have redefined literacy.

“Second” schools use four literacy elements:

Information Sources – reading, visual cognition, quantitative analysis and kinesthetic learning skills.

Information Processing – Thinking operations and reasoning odes

Retention – The most critical literacy skill in grades 6-12.

Producing Thought – Responding to objective test items. Writing in 7 forms, speaking, and creating performances in music, theatre, art, and dance.

Knowledge retention is a new and now most critical skill. Without memory students can’t achieve or produce original thought.  These 4 elements are known as Academic and Career Literacy (ACL). Attachments A and B illustrate in mathematics and other departments.

Elementary or skilled-based schools focus on reading and writing composition.  These experiences are important but inadequate for success in knowledge-based “second” schools.  Whether instruction is authoritarian lecture, inquiry project guided, cooperative groups, or individual instruction via technology, these teachers in “second: schools have no exclusive loyalty to academic learning through reading.  They are eclectic in choosing learning materials and teaching tactics.  Their loyalty is to their students and academic subject matter.  This is their identity and mission.  Walk down the hall in a K-5 school and ask a teacher who he or she is.  Their response will be, “I teach 3^rd grade.”  They identify by child cohort.  Walk down the hall of a “second” school, middle, junior, or senior high school and ask the same question. “Who are you and what do you do?” The response will be different. The Literacy Big Short emerges from this disconnection between elementary schools and “second” school function and literacy use.  The disconnection is deep, harms students, and is not easily corrected through teacher education reform or new State certification requirements.

ORIGINS OF THE BIG LITERACY SHORT

Educators have been aware of the literacy disconnection and have made efforts to define and connect literacy between elementary and adolescent “second” schools.  A 2006 project funded by the Carnegie Corporation in association with the International Reading Association and the Alliance for Excellent Education. Fifteen key elements were identified within a reading and writing literacy concept.  They are abridged and paraphrased below:

The elements do not reflect the actual nature of literacy in “second’ schools They were and remain a response to standardized reading and language arts testing mandates found in district tests, state examinations, PSAT, SAT-1 and the ACT.  These mandates are critical and permanent.  Except for the New York State Regents content graduation examinations, high stakes testing in American “second” schools, middle and high schools, assesses reading and mathematics. But, “second” school students learn and graduate by earning credits in departments that use academic and career literacy, not only the reading component.

What is missing?  The following ACL skills are used across all grades and departments in “second” schools and directly linked to college entrance examinations and achievement.

The greatest deficiency in a reading centered literacy is the near total absence of instructional emphasis on retention and memory. Reading contests determining who has read the most books in a year are very important. They nurture motivation and develop skills.  But does any student who has read 112 books remember what they read in book #56?  There is no need to remember until they enter “second” schools where reading is transformed into literature study.  Remembering Act 2 Scene 4 in Hamlet is critical to understanding Act 3 Scene 1. The challenge becomes not what we read but how quickly we can learn and how much more slowly can we forget.  Without useable memory, every Monday is Friday and teachers can’t go forward.  Review is necessary.  Memory is constructed at the time of instruction and not only through study which only rehearses embedded memory.

This literacy disconnection will continue. University reading preparation programs train reading experts.  State certification requirements reflect these goals. Some students in “second” schools must have intensive reading remediation.  Many more new English-language learners are also entering these schools. Special education enrollment is rising.  There is a growing need for expert reading diagnostic-based instruction.  Yet when these students enter content classrooms their teachers are not loyal to reading as the primary information instructional system.  Success in isolated clinical settings or small group instruction do achieve reading gains. Schools and districts are judged by these test results.  But, credit-driven content learning requires skills other than reading skills.  Students do not graduate high school because they can read.  They graduate when they meet credit requirements. Some drop out.

CLOSING THE BIG LITERACY SHORT GAP

First, can we accept the reality that literacy in the “second” school is not the literacy in the elementary, skill-based school?  Can we accept the reality that university-based degree literacy programs will not easily change since they must produce reading experts and the reformed programs would have to include members from other university departments such as psychology, communications, English, and perhaps, philosophy? Changing state certification requirements is very difficult, time-consuming, and may require administrative code or statutory change.

Any effort to improve achievement in “second” schools must begin in the district.  The first step is an administrative commitment to a new concept of literacy instructional leadership.  Then, in every “second” school can we identify an educator who will embrace and use the ACL concept and gradually begin serving other faculty?  This person could be a reading specialist or a science teacher.  As this teacher assumed a professional development role, they must retain a full teaching schedule.  Any reduction in teaching periods will increase costs, and possibly divide faculty harming the outreach effort.  Administrators should eliminate all school duties for this person.  Their duty will be to practice literacy in their classroom and communicate to other teachers either in their departments or to all teachers during their duty period.  A stipend, summer work, professional travel and other incentives can be offered.

This academic and career literacy leader and administrators can then form a professional learning community (PLC) within the school.  The PLC would include a mathematics, English, science, history, special education, and English-language learner teachers. The PLC would learn about and use ACL and then turnkey their classroom practices within their own departments. Schools would have a permanent cadre of ACL teachers and eliminate outside consultants.

The ACL/PLC project would then assist faculty in meeting school and district goals.  Services could be offered or mandated to new teachers, untenured teachers, teachers at different grade levels, teachers in different departments, and teachers whose observation/evaluation and personal needs include some form of ACL.

THE BIG LITERACY SHORT: A CODA

All “second” schools are fragmented and consist of teaching tribes with different certifications and indeed even locations within the school.  These schools are centrifugal and fracture a student’s experience in a 6-8 period day.  They lack common academic purpose because every subject has its own claim to virtue.  Academic and career literacy can be binding glue in this planned decentered adolescent education ecology. ACL also gives a common definition to Common Core in “second” schools.  A shared center is created where none existed.

Schools grappling with changing demographic, economic, and social circumstances realize that their future is already rapidly receding behind them.  They are in catchup reaction mode.  Part of the dilemma lies in the recognition that the student achievement goal is restrained by an older concept of literacy which is them again disconnected by the current information communications technology that affects all teaching and learning across the different tribal cells in our “second” schools.

Comments to harry.stein@manhattan.edu

Gathering & Organizing Information

Dr. Harry Stein, Manhattan College

Reading

Illustration #1 (Gathering & Organizing) shows an Academic Literacy flow chart.

Inputs are depicted in the upper left.  Reading is one means whereby students practice Gathering and Organizing.  It is the first input which leads to processing, storage, and then producing thought.

First, we must describe and define the term “reading.” 

Academic Literacy is used in knowledge-based classes with content teachers.  They are never reading teachers and do not teach reading.  They use reading for academic content goals.  Academic literacy begins at #27 on the Taylor model.  If students can not progress through points #1-26 they must receive direct reading instruction from reading teachers.  Their comprehension level must be 4th grade or higher.  Academic literacy gives content teachers the tools to create content learning after students can decode words and minimally comprehend.  Academic literacy is a teaching/learning concept in departmentalized middle and high schools.  It assumes minimal reading skills, #1-26 and proceeds from #27 to #37 on the Taylor model.

      Academic Literacy reading is strategic reading.  Reading is a tool for achieving content learning.  Illustration #3 describes strategic reading in the content areas.  It differentiates between traditional reading activities and strategic reading.  The former assumes students can read, retain, and discuss after an assignment.  The latter is planned and directive.  

In Social Studies reading occurs in three settings:  the classroom, the independent assignment, and within tests.

The acronym CAT defines these settings:  class, assignment, and test.

Classroom Reading—The short passage

     Find a critical, short reading passage.  Refer students to their text or handout.  “Short” means no more than three or four reading minutes.  Attention research indicates that the student focus span rarely exceeds four minutes.  The content must be absolutely critical for meeting our goals.  

      So, how can we start the reading?  Illustration #4 gives us eight ways. Set a purpose for the reading.  Tell students what they will do after the reading.  Then, begin the short “tight” reading.

      Mary Byatt and Laura DiPetro of Washington Township in New Jersey created a tool they call My Close Read Bookmark.  Give one to each student,  Illustration #5. 

Using this tool they make “thinking notes.”  Illustration #6

      Before class ask students to bring in a 4 color pen. Use black for important notes, red for confusing ideas, blue for clear ideas, and green for post-reading review notes.  Green for growth or change.

      For memory ask students to note the weather that day, the type of clothing they wore, what they ate for breakfast or lunch or any other personal marker of their lives that day.  Personal memory and academic reading memory unite.

Classroom Reading—The primary source document.  

     Faculty at Knox College in Iowa use Illustration #7 when examining documents. Students make notes on the handout.

      At a 2015 U.S. History AP Reading Conference, Christopher Lewis and Jennifer Yoo Brannon, both AP teachers, presented another tool they called the HAPPY Analysis Chart.  Illustration #8.  When reading/discussing the document the chart is a note-making tool.  H-A-P–P sections are indicated.  The Y is for “why” is the document significant.

Classroom Reading QUESTION/DISCUSSION STRATEGY.  Jane Townsend, University of Florida Illustration #9 gives us general guidelines for in-class readings.  

Every classroom reading needs a question strategy the teacher shares with the readers.  Illustration #10 visualizes 4 types of thinking skills and the question triggers for each.

Illustration#11 shows the QARS strategy. 

Illustration #12 must be carefully read because it gives teachers a question road map whereby students move from depending on the teacher for questions to their being able to create their own questions or statements.  

=========================================

Reading Assignments—Guidelines. 

     Often, we ask students to independently read before the next class.  Then, we expect them to effectively discuss what they have read in class or use the reading to work cooperatively with new materials.  Usually, they have not done the reading or if they have they have not retained any meaning.  Illustration #13 gives teachers a strategy.  Before the assigned reading we must prep students.  As they independently read they need note-making tools to direct their reading and capture their reactions.  Then, when they arrive in class the next day we can proceed.  This is called a BDA strategy.  B=Before, D=During, and A=After the reading.  

Post Assignment Learning Strategies—Guides.

On the previous day we assigned a reading.  Now, in the next class we want to build learning based on their reading.  Guides are a tool.  There are different types. GO#14 illustrates a comprehension levels guide.

GO#14 illustrates a comprehension levels guide.  There are 3 levels:  factual, interpretation, and judgement.

Illustration # 15 – Cause & Effect Patterns

This is a statement not a question guide.  Use statements to trigger thinking.  Statements open the mind.  Questions corner the mind in one direction.  Illustration #15 shows a cause/effect pattern guide and an author’s intention guide. 

Illustration #16 uses lyrics from a ballad At Seventeen and develops a concept guide.

Illustration #17 uses a Claim/Point of View Statement Guide  

Illustration #18 concludes our guide samples by showing how our colleagues in science use guides.  This two part guide was developed by Dr. Judith Thelen from Frostburg State, Maryland.

=====================================

Reading is one tool we use for learning.  We don’t teach it.  We use it for our academic goals.  But, in using it we must not assume students automatically will read and bring critical skills to our classroom.  We have to use our tools in the teaching learning process.

Part 1 – Academic Literacy – Learning with Visuals

“In elementary school all students are taught to read.  Who teaches them to see.  They may be mentally blind.”

     Task #1 is defining the term “visual.”  See illustration Gathering and Organizing #19.  At the bottom is a line graph.  Numbers 1-10 are flat, frozen visuals.  The numbers proceed from #1 abstract symbols such as a plus or minus sign to #10 realistic photographs.  Numbers #11 to #13 are electronic moving visuals.  Our focus is on flat frozen visuals.  

 “A painting is signed. A photograph is not.  Why?”

     Illustration #20 is a visual interpretation chart.  The chart argues that all visuals have a producer with intent and aim.  The visual can vary.  Finally, there is a receiver or audience which has a memory and reason for seeing the visual.  We can always use this generic chart in our classes.

     The most commonly used visual is the photograph. Read illustration #21 for an orientation to photographs.  Pick one of the Thoughts at the bottom and discuss its meaning with students.

     “Looking is easy.  Seeing is an achievement”

      Following are instructional activities we can use when a photograph or pictorial illustration serves our teaching objectives.  Illustration #21 is called Invading the Picture.  Let’s use it with an illustration of the Battle of Omdurman in the Sudan in 1898.  The illustration is extremely dense with information.  We can ask students to tell use what they see or we can deliberately guide them in an inductive teaching manner.  Accessing the illustration has three approaches.  First is the trained eye.  We can sector or divide the scene into observable parts.  The white area seems to divide the two forces.  We can pan the scene from left to right or top to bottom gathering information.  We can zoom shot on one tiny feature and expand the meaning.  For example, using a clock technique go to 11 o’clock in the extreme upper left.  There is a river.  In the river are boats.  Next to the river are masses of assembled troops.

What does this zoom or punctum (point) shot tell us?  Rather than walk across a desert to the battle the British brought their rested troops aboard ships before disembarking them.  They were well fed and had plenty of water so when put into the battle they were fresh.  A final technique is called the “tilt” eye shot in which the viewer is looking down on the scene as if in a drone.  We do not simply look.  We have a guided eye.

     A second approach is called walking through a picture.  A third is called zoning the illustration

     “A photograph or illustration is time’s witness stopping it forever.”

     The 4^th and 5^th approach to invading a photograph or illustration are the aesthetic and sensory approach.

      “Does a photograph have meaning or is the meaning brought to the photograph?’

      Illustration #23 is an action photographs that accompanied an article about a football game being played while a school was burning down. 

Illustration #24 can be used with the same photograph.  A four column analysis is used.  People-who are the people we see?  Objects-what things do we see?  Connect them to the people,  Activities-what actions do we see?  Now, add a 4^th column IDEAS  what ideas or idea does the photograph convey?   This is a POAI-Chart.

      “A photograph both fixes and steals time.”

      Illustration #25 Photograph as a Text shows us how we can tell a Story from a photograph.  Students are given the story chart in the illustration.  A photograph called Paris Bistro is our scene. 

The left side of the chart sets our theme.  What are the intentions of the two people in the picture.  Where in the SHOT is there evidence of the intentions, the argument or thesis claim of the photographer.  What might the plot be?  What is the sequence of events.  What were these two people doing an hour before they met and an hour after.  Do we see any conflicts?

What happened before?  Later?  How might this end.  Is this a father speaking to a daughter?  Is this a husband talking to a wife?  What does the future hold?  This story telling technique could have also been applied to the Omdurman illustration.  

       “A photograph is insight, not sight.”

   Illustration #26 shows another learning strategy. 

       Illustration #27 is a very different learning idea.  It is called skin jumping.  Different people bring a different “eye” or “I” to a picture.  Using the Paris Bistro picture how could or would a viewer of a certain race, religion, social class, age, gender, ethnic group, non-disabled, disabled, or from a certain region of a country view the picture.  

       “The mind is the real instrument of sight and observation.”

       Photographs and illustrations are two visual types.  Paintings and portraits can also be used in our classes.  Illustration #28 gives us some general ideas about comparing and contrasting these visual forms.  

       Illustration #29 depicts a young Frederick Douglass.  What do we “see” or “feel” in him? As you learn about Douglass, using his portrait draw a line from his head outward. On the line print the major ideas he is thinking. Next, draw a line outward from his eyes. On the line print what you think his hopes are. Then draw a line from his mouth outward. On the line print what you think he might have said. Next draw a line from his ears outward. On this line write what you think he might have heard. Look at his hands. Draw a line indicating what actions he took. Draw a line from his upper arm. This is his muscle. Write his strengths on this line. Finally, locate his heart and draw a line outward from his heart. On this line write what you think his feelings were. Therefore, when you teach Frederick Douglass, use a visual with your students to help them in organizing their thoughts.

       “The painted portrait, a sign of wealth.  The photograph a sign of democracy.”

Illustration #30 is used with artistic images.

       Illustration #31 from Catherine Denial of Knox College gives us an SOCC approach:  source, observe, contextualize, and corroborate.  This approach could be used with either Omdurman or the football fire scene.  She uses it with the famous Boston Bloody Massacre scene of 1770.

       Our final visual is a graphic illustration #32 used in a history of American addictions.  A POAI approach from Illustration #24 could first be used.  Make notes on the handout illustration.  On the left side is a Q/S column.  Students are asked to write and answer 3 questions or statements they have about the illustration.  At the bottom of the illustration is a paragraph writing technique called T3BCO.  In a paragraph state the T or topic.  Then list the three ‘becauses’ or evidence to support the topic.  C=the conclusion.  

       Illustration #33 is a visual teaching planning chart.  Using illustration #19 plan how you can teach with visuals in a 9 week marking period.  

       Illustration #34 conveys three ideas about visual learning.

       An article on Visualized Notemaking concludes the gathering and organizing activities and gives students a transition from observing to notemaking, the precondition for building memory leading to writing and speaking.

Academic Literacy – Graphical Information

One type of graphical aid is the familiar chart form.  Illustration #35 informs us about sexually transmitted infections.  Use 3 steps to analyze any chart.  Turn the heading into a question, “what are the”.  Identify the vertical content, the diseases, and finally identify the horizontal content, the variables of cause, transmission etc.  Then complete the chart.

     Illustrations #36 and #37 show 2 different chart forms, the CLUSTER and the WEB.  Students are directed to the central theme and its offshoots. When viewing these charts use a pen to circle the main theme and draw connecting lines with arrows to the parts.  Drawing focuses the eye and mind.   

Additional types of charts are depicted in Illustration #38 ABC.   

Illustration #39 is an article called the Graphic Information Lesson.  It combines maps, graphs, and charts.  The author skillfully integrates visual types and thinking skills.  

     Illustration #40 is an information map that examines the relationships between economic production, the role of government, geography, demography, beliefs, behavior, and economic principles.  The concept of public investment infrastructure is shown with an arrow linking government investment to 7 forms of infrastructure:  T=transportation, E=energy, C=communication, H=health, I=information/education, PH=public health, ands S=security, police, fire, courts, weather prediction, military, and currency management.  Students use the chart for note-making.  Apply this to any country or historical era.

     Illustration #41 is the author’s chapter on graphs, supplemented by two additional examples.

     Illustration #42 is a valuable resource by Edward Tufte, the 20^th century’s foremost thinker in information design.  Gathering and Organizing Information has three components:  reading, representational visuals, and graphical aids.  These forms occur in all of our texts and materials.  Learning to use them is critical and produces life-long learning skills transferable to all careers and daily life.  When students can gather and organize information they create a highway for practicing thinking and reasoning.  When thinking and reasoning are organized into retrievable memory they are the building blocks for writing, speaking, and other creative acts.