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Literacy 7-12

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Literacy 7-12 > Strategies > Graphic Organizer

Graphic Organizer

Overview

Visualizing how ideas fit together helps students construct meaning and strengthens their recall. Graphic organizers outsource the memory demands of a task by mimicking the brain's mental schema, supporting students' cognitive development and, in turn, their literacy skills.

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    Example: Use This Strategy In in the Classroom

  • Because of the wide variety of types of graphic organizers, from concept maps to series of events chain, they can be used in all of the content areas. For learners with low Working Memory, graphic organizers structure and hold onto the information for them. When learners record and review their notes in graphic organizers, they are able to recall this information more easily because they have repeatedly worked with it. This helps develop their Inferencing skills, as learners can more easily connect information across a reading and with their own Background Knowledge.

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  • Graphic organizers that can be manipulated—layout, shapes, colors, fonts—provide even more support for developing readers and writers. Being able to personalize the graphic organizers can engage learners to take ownership over their own learning.

    • Factors Supported by this Strategy

    Learner Background
    Primary Language
    Adverse Experiences
    Physical Well-being
    Hearing
    Socioeconomic Status
    Safety
    Sleep
    Social and Emotional Learning
    Motivation
    Emotion
    Cognition
    Inhibition
    Attention
    Long-term Memory
    Speed of Processing
    Reasoning
    Short-term Memory
    Metacognition
    Working Memory
    Literacy
    Composition
    Background Knowledge
    Argumentative Reasoning
    Disciplinary Literacy
    Vocabulary
    Inferencing

    More Visual Learning Tools Strategies

    Advance Graphic Organizer

    Advance graphic organizers link prior knowledge to upcoming learning to help students anticipate and understand the structure of new information.

    Pictures & Visuals

    Using visual aids, such as pictures, diagrams, and charts, allows for additional processing time and supports learners by breaking down content and skills into more manageable parts.

    Sentence Frames

    Sentence frames or stems provide language support for students' writing and participation in academic discussions.

    Videos

    Providing visuals to introduce, support, or review instruction activates more cognitive processes to support learning.

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