KAITLIN BARNES
GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS
I use graphic organizers in my reading classes to make challenging concepts more accessible and to adapt my instruction to the needs of groups of students. These organizers help break down reading skills into more manageable chunks, which particularly helps my English Language Learners, my special education and dyslexic students, and the many students I teach who are reading below grade level. I often use graphic organizers in our interactive notebooks when I am modeling the application of a reading skill for the entire class. I also use graphic organizers for students to apply their learning with a partner or independently. Other times, the students decide what type of graphic organizer they want to help keep track of their thinking, which gives them the opportunity to design and implement their own learning strategy.
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I often use graphic organizers when I want my students to make connections between the different texts that we are reading. Our second class novel, A Long Walk to Water, actually has several themes in common with our first class novel, Zane and the Hurricane, despite the books seeming very different at first glance. A venn diagram or tri-fold chart helped students organize the thematic connections and similarities that they noticed between the books. I modeled one example together, and then students filled in the rest of the organizer on their own. This activity preceded our study of how to identify and explain the theme of a text, and it helped give my English Language Learners and below-grade level students important background knowledge of this skill that is often difficult to master. Using a graphic organizer made this skill more manageable for them and prepared them for the more difficult work that would follow this introductory activity.
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This student is a strong reader and writer who clearly has a deep understanding of both of our novels. She was able to include details in her examples to support each theme, and articulated her thoughts in complete sentences with few spelling or grammar errors.
This student is dyslexic and is reading at a second grade level. However, she is still able to articulate her examples in writing, although her connections do not have as much depth or detail as the work of many other students.
Summarizing is a difficult reading skill for students to master, because it requires them to identify the main idea of a story and supplement that main idea with only the most important details and events, presented in a logical and sequential order. I noticed that my students could usually identify the best summary of a story or passage, but they struggled when required to write a summary on their own. Capitalizing on my students' interest in graphic novels, I adjusted my summary instruction and designed an activity that allowed them to use a graphic novel template to assist them in writing a summary of a chapter. Being limited on space required students to really think about what they were including in their summary and whether it was actually important. After completing the graphic novel portion, students wrote out a summary to ensure that they understood how to construct a well-written summary. Using a graphic organizer helped students effectively communicate the important events in their text both visually and in writing.
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This student is one of my lower-level readers. She struggled a little with syntax and grammar, but was still able to write a complete summary that included the most important details from the beginning, middle, and end of the chapter.
This student reads slightly above grade level and used to participate in the bilingual education program. He has a strong grasp on the details and events in the chapter and can effectively communicate his summary in writing with few errors.
I use interactive notebooks in my reading class so that students develop a collection of notes and examples for all of the skills and concepts we learn throughout the school year. My school does not follow any particular reading curriculum, so we do not have textbooks or other reference materials. Interactive notebooks are a way for my students to participate in the note-taking and knowledge-building process, and they become a valuable resource for students as they apply reading and writing skills year-round. Students record the modeling that I do during a mini-lesson for the entire class in their interactive notebooks, and this gives them an example to refer back to when they start applying the skill independently to their own texts. They also use graphic organizers to practice on their own or with a partner, and we will review these organizers as a class to ensure that students are not referring to a bad example.
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Graphic organizers are very helpful when my students are finding specific examples from the text to support their ideas. These organizers helped students find evidence to support a character trait, and to support a book's theme.
Graphic organizers also help my students master reading skills that are particularly difficult, such as foreshadowing, inferring, and the deep purpose of figurative language. By breaking these concepts into more manageable pieces, students feel like they can be successful.