Thinking Maps for Study Skills

High School 101 is a class designed for sophomores to explicitly teach them the skills necessary to be successful in high school and to improve their English and math skills. One teacher manages the class, contacting teachers and parents for information updates on the students. Other high school teachers work with the students one or two days a week on specialized topics. Two days a week the students work on language arts skills. Two days a week on math skills. And one day a week they work on general study skills.

I designed a unit to be implemented in a series of study skills days, and Doug Eischens, the school social worker, is team-teaching the unit with me.

During the Thinking Maps Unit students move from guiding questions on their lives in general to guiding questions that specifically deal with their academic habits and life as a student. Examining themselves as students will allow them to evaluate their study skills and school habits. The bridge map serves as the bridge between their lives in general and their lives in school.

Each map is presented in this sequence:

1. Students learn the map by making one with personal information.
2. Doug debriefs the personal information to blend the students' social/emotional needs with their academic needs.
3. Students are taught practical ways to use the map for reading and lecture comprehension with content from their current English 10 course, social studies course, and/or science class.

Here's the lesson from the first day--

Tree Map

Jackie Teaches the Tree Map:

What was your youth culture like when you were in elementary school? (branches of tree map are recreation, clothing, and family traditions) Frame: Simultaneously jot down stories that go with the items. This map will be used first as a community builder since students will mingle and share their information. All students must share this information but will be told that ahead of time.

Doug Debriefs the Personal Information:

Introduction to the idea that sharing will happen after each map is completed, but students will only be asked to share what they are comfortable sharing. Doug plans to facilitate the after each map debriefs similar to how he runs his student support groups. The students really enjoyed this activity as a way to find out things that they had in common with other students in the room. Doug told them that a support network of friends at school is key, so this sharing of cultural backgrounds really helped that.


Jackie Makes Content Connections and Study Skill Applications:

I wanted to show the students some practical study skill uses for the tree map. I had the students make tree maps for the main character in their English 10 novel in their English notebooks. I have students in two different English classes, so I just did both novels on the white board at once. The English 10 students mapped Codi’s (Animal Dreams) clothes, recreation, and family traditions, and the boys in Guys 10 did the same three branches for Siddhartha. This activity helped students bring the characters to life and allowed them to make personal connections.

Then, I made the students pull out their history notebooks and look at their last lecture notes. I had the students create category titles for a tree map on Mesopotamia--and they came up with religion, literature, and government. They reviewed their notes and synthesized their notes in a tree map. Making a tree map for lecture reflection was hard for them to do, but the product was fascinating.

Stay tuned for future installments of how teaching the other maps goes in High School 101. The circle map is on tap for next week.

Thinking Maps for Independent Reading Project

Jim Hatten developed the following independent unit for students to complete outside of class for a book of their choosing.

Each quarter, English 10 students select one book to read outside of class. Though somewhat structured, the purpose of the outside reading project is to help students develop into independent readers by allowing them to choose a topic or title that is of interest to them.

During the quarter, students are expected to demonstrate proficiency at comprehension, interpretation, and evaluation of reading.

In Quarter 3 of English 10, the category for the outside reading project is a book that has won a significant publishing award such as the ALA, Caldecott Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, the ALA Alex Awards, and many, many others.

A parent must approve the book chosen by the student and needs to sign the cover to this packet signifying their approval and understanding of the project. Students complete projects spread throughout the quarter and hand them in on time or ahead of time to receive full credit.

The following Thinking Map assignments are part of the independent study. The descriptions have been taken right from the student assignment packet.

Circle Map Clue Search

Examine the book before reading and complete a circle map for their "clue search" for this pre-reading, prediction activity. Put the book's title in the middle of the circle map and define the book with words and phrases that you have found through examining the following possible sources of hints:

Dedication
Title
Author
Cover illustration
Back cover/jacket
What others said
A quick glance at a few pages

In the frame of the circle map, write your predictions about the book.


Characterization Tree Map

Characterization is the process of conveying information about characters in a piece of fiction. Characters are usually presented through their actions, dialect, and thoughts, as well as by description. Characterization can regard a variety of aspects of a character, such as appearance, age, gender, educational level, vocation or occupation, financial status, marital status, social status, cultural background, hobbies, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ambitions, motivations, personality, etc.

After reading one-fifth of your book, you should have a good idea of the development of the main character (or person of central focus in your non-fiction book). The author should be developing the main character – how he/she looks and acts. Complete a tree map using information from the first one-fifth of your book.

Four ways to learn about characters--Look carefully for quotations about the main character’s appearance and personality to collect on the tree map. Character development is done in four ways. The four branches of your tree map need to reflect the following four ways of character developement.

Narrator’s Description--The way the character is described by the narrator (what the author literally says about what a character is like);
Character’s words--what the character says to describe him/herself;
Character’s actions--what the character does (the actions and physical appearance of that character);
Other characters say--what other characters say or do to that character.

Cause/Effect Multi-Flow Map

Create a multi-flow map that analyzes the causes and effects of the central conflict in the book. The causes of the conflict are on the left, and the major effects of that conflict are on the right.


Double Bubble Comparison to Another Text

Using a double bubble map, compare and contrast your book, character or characters, events, issues, topics, motifs or theme to another book, movie, story, play or other work of literature.

--Jim Hatten, English 10

Writing and Thinking

Jane Buckner in David Hyerle's Student Successes with Thinking Maps states that "writing is actually thinking written down." Buckner makes this claim because she believes that many educators feel "writing is just talk written down" (page 78).


That statement equating thinking and writing started me on my quest to explore writing connections in the books that I had received from NUA. Although I had used or seen many of the strategies modeled, I had not scanned the books with a "writing and thinking" lens. I got some great ideas that I could pass on to teachers who had specific questions about teaching writing. Below is a summary of my findings:


Student Successes in Thinking Maps


Buckner's chapter in Student Successes in Thinking Maps called “Empowering Students from Thinking to Writing” specifically addresses how to help students write a non-plagiarized, authentic research paper. Buckner advocates the use of the tree map or flee map for note taking. English 10 teachers had great luck with the flee map last year during the research paper unit to help students organize their research findings before writing their paper.

In addition to tree or flee maps for note taking, Buckner states that teachers can help students with disorganized papers through a process of “reverse mapping.” Basically, students cut apart their paper and try to fit their sentences into a flee map. Reverse mapping also allows students to see any holes that they have in their paper.



Thinking Strategies for Student Achievement


Denise Nessel’s book, Thinking Strategies for Student Achievement, has a wealth of writing strategies. Here is the briefest of summaries of writing-relevant chapters:


Cubing (p. 39): Chapter 5 describes this strategy which allows students to think about a topic from multiple perspectives (describe, compare/contrast, associate, analyze, apply, and argue for/against). This strategy increases students' fluency on a topic and helps them learn the cognitive clues that are often used in essay questions.

Freewriting (p. 67): Chapter 9 discusses a long-time favorite strategy for English teachers that involves students writing for a sustained period of time without stopping. This technique is a great tool for generating ideas and overcoming writer's block.

I-Search Reporting (p. 81): Chapter 12 includes a number of follow-up questions that teachers can ask students to make research paper topics relevant to their lives by having students formulate questions that are related to their concerns and pursuits.

Imitation Writing (p. 87): Chapter 13 outlines this strategy which involves taking a known work or famous quotation and substituting words while maintaining the text's structure.

Journal and Learning Logs (p. 101): Chapter 15 includes a number of journal writing prompts not only for English teachers but also for math, social studies, and science logs.

Key Word Notes (p. 109): Chapter 16 details this strategy that many Edina teachers use for lectures, readings, films and classroom discussions. Key Word Notes is a quick and efficient information gathering strategy if students need to write an essay after a reading selection as part of an exam. To learn about more applications of this strategy, click on "Key Word Notes" under "NUA Topics Discussed on This Blog."

Paraphrasing (p. 141): Chapter 21 discusses how teachers should start students with paraphrasing of texts that students can’t copy—e.g. videos, the teacher reading aloud. Then students can progress to reading, putting down the text, and taking notes.

Saturation Reporting (p. 171): Chapter 27 discusses this eye witness written report based on intense observations of a certain location and/or event. These reports become detailed, sensory descriptions.

Writing Frames (p. 187): Chapter 30 of Nessel's book summarizes the strategy of using frames (text structures with blanks to be filled in) that is detailed in Writing as Learning by Andrew and Evelyn Rothstein.

Sample Descriptive Writing Lesson: On p. 171, Nessel outlines a writing lesson that incorporates a number of strategies previously mentioned in her book.

Thinking Maps: Tools for Learning


David Hyerle's Thinking Maps binder has many ideas for prewriting and essay organization. The "Teaching" section of the binder shows how each map can be used for prewriting an essay, and an essay prompt is included. Also, pages 3-17 and 3-24 have writing starter patterns.

If students learn cognitive clues in essay questions, they will be able to select the appropriate Thinking Map for organizing their ideas. For example, Thinking Maps are associated with the following expository text structures:


1) sequence is flow map

2) double bubble is compare and contrast

3) multi-flow is cause and effect

4) circle map or bubble map for describing

5) problem/solution involves multiple maps (circle map to define, double bubble to compare to possible solutions)


Writing as Learning

Andrew Rothstein, Evelyn Rothstein and Gerald Lauber's book Writing as Learning includes a number of strategies to assist with writing across the curriculum. The book discusses how the A to Z Taxonomy can be used both to engage students and to help them organize their ideas for writing. Chapter 7 "Profiles and Frames: Organize Your Writing" and Chapter 9 "Reasons, Causes, Results--The Basis of the Essay" appear to be the most relevant chapters to assist teachers with high school essay writing.

Thinking Maps in Art of Film

Rachel Tholen's Art of Film students, mostly seniors, used Thinking Maps to review the Westerns that they had studied in class prior to the Western unit exam. Students selected three maps to complete and present to the class. Rachel said the final discussion day with the map presentations went very well.


Rachel gave her students the following possible maps and tasks:


Circle map: Define the elements of the Western genre, typical characters or one aspect of the film.


Bubble map: Describe the film, a character or the genre.


Double Bubble Map: Compare and contrast two films, two characters within a film, two main characters from different films, or two directors' styles.


Tree Map: List details about the literary, dramatic and cinematic elements of a film and in the frame comment on their effects on the viewer.

Brace Map: Break down the setting of a film into its subparts. In the frame, answer the question: How does the director use set direction to enhance theme?

Flow Map: Sequence the main events of the film and include important substages of that event.

Multi-Flow Map: Analyze the causes and effects of a main conflict in the movie. The frame should answer the question: How do cinematic elements enhance conflict?

Bridge Map: What analogies can you make between this movie's characters and events and pop culture of other films and books?

Multiple Maps for Deeper Meaning

As the culminating U.S. History project, Ruth Mary has her students go through a complete problem solving process using thinking maps. Students pick a problem that they think the world is facing, like AIDS or environmental issues, and they work through the maps to come to a solution.

The steps in the process are described on page 4-21 in the Thinking Maps: Tools for Learning blue binder.

The problem definition stage involves creating a circle map to define the problem and a bubble map to describe the attributes of the problem.

The collect and organize data stage involves the students classifying details that they found during the research process in a tree map.

The brainstorm solutions/options stage has students brainstorm possible solutions to problem with a circle map and then use a flow map to prioritize options.

The evaluate consequences stage has students create a multi-flow map for each possible solution to analyze the causes and effects.

In the choose a solution stage students complete a double bubble map that compares and contrasts the two best solution possibilities, and then their final solution is expressed in a bridge map to make an analogy for better understanding.

Tree Map to Organize Writing

Betsy's World History students created tree maps after completing research on a person of historical influence. The papers had to address three areas of influence for their historical figure, so a tree map with the influences as categories was a logical way to classify details to use in the paper.

Betsy provided her students with the following sample tree map as a model.

Algebra Problem Takes Three Thinking Maps

Scott and Lizzy have been working this fall with Algebra students and using thinking maps to solve problems. The students went through a process of defining the problem with a circle map, classifying known information about the problem in a tree map, and then putting the equation steps into a flow map.

The teachers prompted the circle map creation with the question, "what do you need to define to solve this word problem?" "What distance" was the essential question, so that became the center of the circle map, and students defined "what distance" with all the details they knew from the word problem.

The second step was to classify the details into a tree map. Lizzy and Scott did not tell the students the categories, so many students struggled with this step. Upon reflection, Lizzy and Scott felt that the tree map categories should be worked out in a full class discussion so that students are not led too far astray. Here are the resulting tree maps:

List Group Label

KC's sophomores completed a list group label activity to analyze the props in Arthur Miller's All My Sons. KC had her students list all of the props that they could find in the play, then the students grouped them into categories on a tree map. Finally, they had to label the categories. The activity got the students thinking about the significance of Miller's props, and they realized that the detailed stage directions are included for a symbolic reason. One of the more interesting tree maps had the categories of positive, negative and unimportant props.

Click here for a full description of the strategy.

Outside Reading Thinking Maps

Jim Hatten created a comprehensive assessment using Thinking Maps for his sophomore English class. His students create four Thinking Maps on the memoir that they read outside of class. This activity replaces a traditional literary analysis essay.

Jim created a website to help his students understand ways that they could use each Thinking Map to show their understanding of the book that they read. Since students were able to choose which four maps to use, the website helped students explore their options.

Click here to explore Mr. Hatten's website.

Tree Map For Peer Review

At the English 10 meeting, KC discussed using the tree map for peer review for the student's first essay. Each branch would be labeled with the six traits of writing--ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions.

Under each of the six branches, sub-branches for strengths (+) and weaknesses (-) would be drawn. As students read each other's essay, they list details under the appropriate + or - branch.

To facilitate this process, students exchanged notebooks with their peer review partner. The peer reviewer created the 6 Traits tree map in the author's notebook. That way, the author not only had the information ready for revision of this particular essay, but also the author had the tree map record in the notebook to review when writing subsequent essays.

This strategy reminded me of the time that I graded blue book essays by simply creating a strengths (+) and weaknesses (-) tree map on the front of each blue book. I then listed a few ideas under the - and a few under the +. Assessing essays this way was efficient since I did not write comments throughout the blue book, and the tree map was meaningful to students because they could see a quick summary of their strengths and weaknesses. Students also liked seeing that they did get at least one positive comment.

Tree Map for Classroom Rules

During the first week of school, I had students create a tree map for the class rules. I provided the tree branch headings of Work--Respect--Belong. (Thanks KC for those headings.) Students then decided what those concepts looked like regarding specific classroom behaviors. Classifying classroom behavior details in this manner allowed students to see what types of activities they should engage in to be successful in my classroom.

This process allowed me as the teacher to give some direction as to the general code of conduct while allowing students to take ownership in how the general rules would play out specifically in the classroom.

Those tree maps are posted in the classroom, and I refer to them when a student needs a reminder.

Math Thinking Strategies

Scott, the high school numeracy coach, and I have been meeting over the past few weeks to discuss ideas for Advanced Algebra. Since my math skills left me 25 years ago when I dropped Calculus II in college, these meetings have been a challenge for me.

However, my lack of knowledge may be paying off. Last week, Scott gave me a word problem to solve and asked me if I could use thinking maps to solve it. Being true to the belief that the brain thinks eight ways as represented by Hyerle's Thinking Maps, I set out on the task. I falsely started with a tree map and then realized I didn't even know the ideas to classify yet.

After backtracking to a circle map to define the problem, I felt much better about the problem. I then could make a tree map that classified the parts of the problem, which turned out to be the parts of the mathematical expression I needed to arrive at to solve the problem. The solution to the problem was just a quick flow map away.

I have to confess that it took me nearly 20 minutes to solve this one word problem from an Advanced Algebra sophomore class. Scott found my thoughts fascinating because I was talking out what I was thinking as I was making the Thinking Maps. Scott said that with students he never gets to hear the thought process; students usually just shut down and say, "I don't get it."

Scott and I came to the conclusion that my brain needed to go through the following three thinking processes to solve the problem:
1) a circle map to define
2) a tree map to classify
3) a flow map to sequence the stages of the mathematical expression

Since the problem solving process took so long (even with Scott asking me clarifying questions along the way), I wanted to test the idea that I had, in fact, learned something and could solve another problem. I wanted to show Scott that taking the time up front to get me to understand the process would pay off in the end when I made up time on future problems.

I went through the same three-step process with a second problem and arrived at the correct answer in only five minutes, and I had sketched out the three Thinking Maps. I was amazed at my ability to solve the second problem, and I was actually enjoying math.

After this session with Scott, I pulled out Hyerle's Thinking Map binder to look if he had addressed math problem solving steps. He had! I can't believe that I neglected to look there first, but in retrospect, I am glad I tried to construct meaning on my own. Hyerle proposed using the same three-step process that I had arrived at on my own--the circle map, the tree map and the flow map in that order. Arriving at that process independently further strengthened my belief that the brain does think in those eight ways.

Scott took my completed maps back to the math department. One teacher couldn't believe that I had thought that way to solve the problem. She felt I should have done it another way. Scott said that he realized then that people have different frames of reference when solving math problems and there are probably students sitting in the math classes needing to think out the problems with all the steps that I needed.

List Group Label Strategy

The List/Group/Label strategy offers a simple three-step process for students to organize a vocabulary list from a reading selection. This strategy stresses relationships between words and the critical thinking skills required to recognize these relationships.

List/Group/Label challenges students to . . .

• List key words (especially unclear and/or technical terms) from a reading selection.
• Group these words into logical categories based on shared features.
• Label the categories with clear descriptive titles.
  

Steps to List/Group/Label:

1. Select a main topic or concept in a reading selection.
2. Have students list all words they think relate to this concept. Write student responses on the whiteboard.
3. Divide the class into groups of 3 or 4 students. Have these teams join together related terms from the larger list. Have the teams provide "evidence" for this grouping—that is, require the students to articulate the common features or properties of the words collected in a group.
4. Ask the student groups to suggest a descriptive title or label for the collections of related terms. These labels should reflect the rationale behind collecting the terms in a group.
5. Finally, have students read the text selection carefully and then review both the general list of terms and their collections of related terms. Students should eliminate terms or groups that do not match the concept's meaning in the context of the selection. New terms from the reading should be added, when appropriate. Terms should be "sharpened" and the groupings and their labels revised, when necessary.

An alternative use of this strategy is for the teacher to provide the list of terms or vocabulary words for the students to organize. Then students can speculate about the topic to be read. These word lists can be copied on card stock for easier manipulation.

The finished, labeled categories can be presented in a tree map since the tree map is for classifying details and grouping ideas.

Using the List/Group/Label strategy develops critical thinking abilities and uses motivation to increase comprehension. The strategy engages students by building their curiosity and allowing them to activate their prior knowledge. Hilda Taba created this strategy because of people's interest in inductive thinking, making generalizations based on specifics. This cognition strategy is also based on Jerome Bruner's research on how people learn, organize and retain information.

Some teachers may feel that they need to teach all of the word definitions for students to be successful with this strategy; however, not knowing all of the definitions also adds to a student's curiosity and guessing definitions may increase student enjoyment in the task.

Math teachers have found success with this strategy when they have students List/Group/Label various terms, expressions and symbols.