Graphic Organizers

What are some of the advantages to using graphic organizers in your classroom?
1.  Facilitate in class discussions--  Due to organized notes, students are more confident in the accuracy and depth of what they have recorded.  A graphic organizer can also be used to make connections in discussion that students can actually see in front of them.
2.  Ease of grading-- graphic organizers are set up as one page documents, making it easier to check notes for both accuracy and completion
3.  Confident readers-- Visual format that provides places to fill in information and encourages complex, critical thinking while reading (such as skills of comparison and concept connections), allows students to feel more confident that they have gathered and recorded the correct info. while reading

First, decide, in terms of both the "big picture/conceptual thinking" and specific facts/ideas, what it is that you want students to have engrained in their mind at the end of reading an assigned article, section, etc.  Once this decision has been made, it will be easier to choose or create a graphic organizer that will meet your needs.  I have linked a "graphic organizers" reproducibles link that you may print from for classroom use.  There are some great ways for students to plot out and organize their thinking while and after reading in a variety of subject areas.  These organizers were originally printed in Doug Beuhl's Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning, a book that does a great job describing how to utilize these graphic organizers and other classroom strategies to facilitate discussion and interaction with the text.

Next, familiarize students with the text(s) you would like them to read.  If it is assigned from a textbook or website, be sure they know where to find the reading.  It is not a bad idea to do a little review of the functions to the textbook that we have come to know and take for granted, like the glossary, table of contents, and the index.  This "tutorial" may save you time in the long run.

Clarify for students the intentions of the reading assignment.  Give them a few guiding questions (learning targets, if you will), and encourage students to use a graphic organizer to record what you want them to know.   The main advantage to a graphic organizer is to provide students with an effective way to approach their reading that helps them to record info. in a concise, systematic format that can be used to facilitate classroom discussions and activities in subsequent days.