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My students of all ages love creating mind maps, and I do too! I was first introduced to them during my PhD when a colleague told me how she used them at the beginning of the semester with her preservice teachers. She had them mind-map their passions during the first class and then students shared them with their classmates during a speed dating activity. I've used mind-maps in multiple ways. Students can mind-map
When I have my students mind-map, I also complete the activity and share my illustrations with the class. By doing so, I show my students that I am always learning and also passionate about the engaging methods we use in our ELA classroom. Enjoy seeing what your students produce by doing this activity! |
Creative One-Pager
In my classes, I use the term “one-pager” to describe a writing assignment where students focus on one idea/topic/quote/theory, provide their own commentary, and then apply it in one single-spaced typed page. Because students only have one page, they have to be very careful about what they choose to include in their writing and revise to make sure that they’ve communicated what they want about the topic. These work well for my purposes, but here’s a new take on creative one-pagers that may work well for your students:
Creative one-pagers are responses where students use words and images to communicate their ideas. Betsy Potash explains simple tricks for success using creative one-pagers in her interview with The Cult of Pedagogy. I haven’t used these in my classroom, but I can easily see the benefit of adding them next school year. The creative one-pager seems to be a mix between what I’ve typically called a one-pager and a mind map, which I’ve detailed in a separate post. To make the one-pager a digital assignment, students can use Poster My Wall, Canva, Google Drawing, Google Slides, or any other program that allows for images and text. Here’s an idea: the teacher creates one Google Slides presentation where each student has their own slide to use for their creative one-pager as a response to what you are studying/reading/researching. Then, students can see each other’s one-pagers and comment on their ideas. I might try it!
Creative one-pagers are responses where students use words and images to communicate their ideas. Betsy Potash explains simple tricks for success using creative one-pagers in her interview with The Cult of Pedagogy. I haven’t used these in my classroom, but I can easily see the benefit of adding them next school year. The creative one-pager seems to be a mix between what I’ve typically called a one-pager and a mind map, which I’ve detailed in a separate post. To make the one-pager a digital assignment, students can use Poster My Wall, Canva, Google Drawing, Google Slides, or any other program that allows for images and text. Here’s an idea: the teacher creates one Google Slides presentation where each student has their own slide to use for their creative one-pager as a response to what you are studying/reading/researching. Then, students can see each other’s one-pagers and comment on their ideas. I might try it!