Graphic Organizers

Teaching Writing Using Traditional & New Literacies:

The article we read gave me great insight on how I can help my students brainstorm, add detail, and narrate the stories they write. In the article, there is a little blue inset toward the end that says Take Action! and I feel that trying out any of those strategies would benefit my students. One strategy I do already use is having students talk with their writing partner about what they are going to write about. I could take this one step further and continue to teach students ways (phrases/questions) in which to give each other constructive feedback, thinking of ways to help their partner strengthen their writing.

When thinking of our writing units, I think it would be great to have students draw out pictures that go along with their narratives, as well as record themselves telling the story. This gives them an opportunity to reflect and make sure they included all of the important parts. They will also be able to remember it better and come back to it if need be, rather than telling their partner then forgetting parts later on.

As we begin to do research in fourth quarter, I think it would be beneficial to tie in graphic organizers and mind maps to help students organize their information and notes they take along the way. 5th grade will be researching a university participating in March Madness, so using webs would help them keep track of their information, which will later be turned into a presentation.

Evaluated App: Popplet Lite (*Limits 5 popplets made before upgrade$$)
Ease of creation: Each popple has icons around it to edit it. There is a ? in the corner that explains them all. You can resize objects by using arrows and can move around popples by just clicking on them and sliding them around. The export option is great-allows you to email in different formats or save.
Clarity: Everything is easy to read.
Insert pictures: You can use pictures from your computer's library, but it doesn't allow you to get any from the web, which I would want my students to do.
Age level: I can see this being used by students ranging 1st-5th with instruction of how to use it ahead of time. It is also nice because it is an app and a website.