Graphic Organizers for Content Instruction

[Frank]

by Judie Haynes

Graphic organizers make content area information more accessible to second language learners. They convert complex information into manageable chunks. Download graphic organizers from this page.

One of our roles as ESL and bilingual specialists is to encourage mainstream teachers to employ teaching techniques which make content area information more accessible to second language learners. Content materials present text which is too dense for ELLs. Teach your students to use graphic organizers such as webs, Venn diagrams, and charts to help them better comprehend these texts. These are visual tools that help ELLs understand and organize information. They are like mind maps which promote active learning. Graphic Organizers can also help students develop higher level thinking skills and promote creativity.

One of our goals in teaching our English language learners is to help them summarize and interpret text. Graphic Organizers are excellent tools in achieving this goal.

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Compare and Contrast Organizer (30k .PDF)

Story Map (2k .PDF)

KWL chart (2k .PDF)

Story Action Map (2k .PDF)

Story board (3k .PDF)

Venn diagram (2k .PDF)

Fishbone map (23k .PDF)

Network tree (2k .PDF)

Spider map (6k .PDF)

Story star (93k .PDF)

Cycle chart (2k .PDF)

T-Chart (2k .PDF)

[Frank]

Some more examples of graphic organizers that you can draw yourself. Just keep a set of master outlines that your students can trace onto blank sheets of paper ... and you'll always be prepared and ready to go!

[Lut Baten]

For writing letters of application, we could devise an organizer on the AIDA principle
Attention getter = paragraph 1
Interest 2
Desire 3
Action 4
It is a very good mental organiser to help students structure their input.

[Frank]

Hi Lut ... makes me think about the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) ORID discussion model for facilitating questions after an activity, film, event, reading, etc. Questions posed in this order help to facilitate higher order thinking and deeper thinking ... as they follow a natural "building" flow.

O = Objective (facts, details, etc. i.e. "What one image from the image comes to your mind first?)
R = Reflective (feelings, gut reactions, etc. i.e. "How did you feel when the mother slapped her son?")
I = Interpretive (synthesizing, i,e, "Why do you think Mark's connection with animals was significant?")
D = Decisional (future focus, action, i.e. "What are the next steps that we need to take to seize this opportunity?")

I have used this process and it works wonderfully! It opens up the groups and gets them really into the discussion with purpose!

[Frank]

Here is a good site with lots of nice organizers;

http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/

[Ellen Graber]

Ouch! Once I had to set up a three-circle Venn diagram and all the parts which overlapped had to have separate purposes. That was fun!

[META 2.0]

Also check out Exploratree for Web-based graphic organizer tools.

Exploratree - Exploratree by FutureLab

[Frank]

Graphic Organizers

[Frank]

Good resource at British Council's Teaching English, http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/graphic-organisers

Six common organizers to get started

[ROSA EMILIA PINEDA VELASCO]

I agree with this opinion, it is very useful for anybody studying anything!!! The way we "show" and "express" our ideas is personal and all these organizers are fun and an excellent tool to explain and understand any matter. They are used by CEO´s in huge intn´l firms and/or anybody else writing eveb on a napkin! An easy way to summarize useful and key information.

[Frank]

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