Graphic+Organizers


 * Summary**** and Rationale **

Graphic Organizers represent ideas in a text pictorially (Lenski et. al, 2011: 151). They are particularly useful in helping students categorize, compare, contrast, and link diverse concepts and terms. Though similar to outlines, graphic organizers offer more flexibility in the structuring of ideas.

//Directions//:
 * 1) **Introduce** the concept of graphically organizing ideas, and how doing so may improve understanding of texts. Note that there are at least five patterns of organizing information derived from a text: description, sequence, compare-contrast, cause-effect, and problem-solution.
 * 2) **Model** how to use a graphic organizer. Choose a passage from a text so that you can model the process of using a graphic organizer. Demonstrate how you chose which information to select to fill out the organizer.
 * 3) **Handout** copies of the graphic organizer for students to use.
 * 4) **Repeat** using different patterns of graphic organizers.


 * Example**

In the text, //Born in Blood and Fire//, John Chasteen makes clear comparisons between the initial encounters between the Spanish explorers and the indigenous groups in the Americas on the one hand, and the Portuguese explorers and indigenous groups on the other. Due to the emphasis on this comparison in the text, the instructor may choose to demonstrate the differences and similarities between the Spanish and Portuguese encounters visually.

Also called a Venn diagram, students will be asked to create two overlapping circles. In one circle, students will write down information unique to the Spanish encounter that was not shared by the Portuguese (for example, the name of the explorers, the year of "discovery", the initial plans to set up a colony). In the second circle, students will be instructed to do the same for the Portuguese (for example, the intentions to __not__ set up a colony initially and the year of "discovery" of the land now called Brazil). In the section where the two circles overlap, students would include similarities between the two encounters (for example, reliance on slavery, extraction of primary commodities, impact on health and livelihood of indigenous populations, the fact that initial "discovery" was accidental). For an example of what a partially completed compare-contrast Graphic Organizer would look like, please see the uploaded file below.