Post your 2-3 paragraph summary of the 3-5 ideas you explored for how you could use Concept Mapping within your future classroom. Give your specific examples.
Student Created. I explored the Inspiration Language Arts examples and came up with a few that I thought would work really well in the classroom. I'd like to use concept mapping for The Odyssey, novels by Toni Morrison, or other novels that are heavily populated. In these novels it's difficult to keep characters straight, and there have been many times (in Morrison's Paradise, for example) when I've caught myself flipping back to an earlier passage in an attempt to remember which character the author was referring to and what her past history was. If students could create an ongoing concept map, adding details and characters as the book progressed, I think it would be a handy reference to have at their side as the plot and themes progressively thicken.
Co-Created. The second way I'd use concept mapping would be for poetry. Many students frequently cite poetry as the most difficult type of text for them to comprehend. I loved the Wordsworth example that the site used. It really nailed the literary devices the poet used and I love the progression of line number to example from the text to what literary device was employed. I could envision doing one map on a smart board or projector with students, turning them lose on their own poems afterward. It's a much more cohesive/inclusive way to teach literary devices. Because poetry analysis has so many specific components, I also think the visual representation of the parts would help a lot of students who get lost in a tangle of diction, imagery, syntax, rhyme, meter, and so forth. Because poetry is subjective, I also envision students coming up with maps that contain many of the same devices, but which vary greatly in their examples. Middle-to-long poems and more complex poems would lend themselves nicely. I'd probably show students an example of a more difficult poem and then have them try the map out on a less cryptic poet, such as Billy Collins, and use that map as a gateway to other poetry (Keats, Plath, Edna St. Vincent Millay, etc.)
Student-Created. The third way I would use concept mapping would be in comparing two books with similar themes, or from similar time periods. For example, I might use The Odyssey and couple it with "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" The map would provide a great way to separate out complex themes and simple character comparisons all in one spot. It would help students who have a difficult time making connections between texts and could also be a springboard for a paper that begins by asking students to make comparisons and judgment before coming to a conclusion about a theme or character.
Discuss what you see as the impact of the use of Concept mapping might have on student learning within your future classroom. Give some details to support your statements.
I think the concept maps would be beneficial to many different students. The flexibility that the map offers means that both more advanced students as well as struggling readers could take advantage of its uses. Mapping allows students a visual representation of the text, which is especially beneficial for students who have a difficult time "seeing" the connections between characters and/or themes in various texts, for those (such as myself) who find a large character list quite daunting, and for those students who struggle, at the end of a book, to remember enough details about the text to begin brainstorming for their paper or project. Having a concept map that progresses as the student move through the book means that all sorts of important details can be recorded. It also means that students need to make value judgments to decide what is important for them to add to their map, and what to leave out.
The concept map, to me could be used as a more focused form of note-taking that allows students to have a point that they are moving toward. So students could make little notes of page numbers, important things to remember, etc. at home, and then transfer what they feel is important to the concept map, organizing it in the process.
Discuss at least 2 criteria that you would use to decide whether or not Concept Mapping activities would be part of a lesson for your students.
My decision to use Concept Mapping in a particular lesson would definitely be based on my learning targets for the day. I would want the concept map to enhance the students' understanding of a text or help them better organize their ideas. I would also take into account the types of learners in my classroom and whether or not it would benefit the students to work individually or in pairs or groups. In one lesson I might have students make individual maps of different poems that they have selected (see image at the top of this page). In another lesson, I might find it to be more helpful for students to collaborate on a character sketch that could be used as a handout for the students' classmates.
The frequency with which we used the maps would also depend upon the availability of computer access within my building.
