USING GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS

Graphic organizers are a helpful way to organize information. Graphic organizers:

1.      Help one understand how things go together.

2.      Help one generate ideas

3.       Help one remember information better

4.       Make it easier to write a final draft.

5.       Help organize any type of writing.

I have had a wonderful experience with graphic organizers and used it as much as possible in my learning. Due to the strategic and thought provoking nature of graphic organizers, I have created many opportunities to use this approach.  Students can also have a great experience using this approach.  As highlighted above, graphic organizers help students see the relationship between ideas and concepts, generate ideas, aid in retention and forces coherency in writing. Graphic organizers are so multidimensional, that its structure and format can cater for the different modes of writing.  There are a lot of different kinds of graphic organizers for different kinds of writing projects.

Cluster Diagrams – good for descriptive writing, especially when you have a lot of different ideas.

Charts – good for writing directions of how to do something, or for keeping a lot of different ideas in categories.

Venn Diagrams – good for comparing things that are the same and different.

Story Maps – good for retelling books, plays or stories.

Cause and Effect Diagrams – good for explaining how something happened.

Outlines – good for big topics with lots of main ideas and details. Outlines are also good for persuasive writing.

Timelines - good for telling the order of how things happen in time.

Due to the multiple merits of using graphic organizers, students can craft or create a specific purpose of their graphic organizers, based on the genre of writing. Researchers have highlighted the benefits of using this strategy as a prewriting strategy, but students can also use it as a means to summarize ideas, to see the connection between certain ideas, to make inferences and so much more.

After reading the recommended articles for this activity, I took the opportunity to contemplate on the multiple ways and means of using concept webs in my classroom.  Graphic organizers scaffold students into a safe zone. It provides an ongoing support to the learner, thus permitting them to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that are within his/her range of concern. I view graphic organizers as a vehicle in which the driver, which is the student, can direct at a point where the connection of the ideas generated can achieve its set goal.

 I see the value of all the graphic organizers, as they cater to all forms or modes of writing. My aim now, is to implement or use appropriate graphic organizers in my teaching based on the text provided. Students should then experience the universality of graphic organizers and how it can be applicable to areas across the curriculum (thus creating independent learners).