What are examples of teaching strategies, activities, and ...



What are examples of teaching strategies, activities, and lesson plans in Language Arts?

Visual Strategies for Teaching Students Note-Taking

When teaching students concepts in language arts, it is often advantageous to have them take notes. These notes can become useful guides for reviewing concepts and preparing for exams and projects. In this paper I will share a few techniques of using images as part of visual and verbal note-taking processes, as well as a rationale for using this strategy with students. Three types of visual notes will be outlined here: two-column visual notes, image notes, and image and text box notes. Tips for creating these notes and alternatives for teachers who would prefer not to draw are also provided.

Why visual strategies are important for note-taking practices

To attend to the diverse needs of their students, language arts teachers often need an extensive repertoire of teaching strategies. By including images as important components of teaching language and literacy, teachers provide students with more opportunities to grasp the material. Eisner (2002) notes that students who work in visual and linguistic media when investigating a concept are not doing duplicative work; rather, the work in two systems of thinking allows for layered and complementary learning to be possible (see Suhor (1984) for more information on the systems of thinking that are part of any curriculum). By adding visual elements to notes that students take, teachers are giving students another path toward understanding the concept (see Eisner (1998) for more on multiple pathways to learning as a function of arts-based learning).

The examples used in this paper are taken from my own teaching practice. While teaching freshman and sophomore language arts, I used images for a number of activities and almost always with note-taking tasks. Most of my students found these different types of note-taking to be rather easily integrated into their own learning repertoires. When writing up the notes in class, there was often laughter involved as we negotiated what images would be used. Thus, while serious learning was being modeled in the class, the students saw that this same learning could also be fun and personal, even while doing a task that can otherwise be quite dry.

Three Visual Strategies for Taking Notes

Two-Column Visual Notes

The two-column visual notes in this section are based on the Cornell note-taking method (see the links below in the On-line Resources section for more information and examples of traditional uses of the Cornell Method). Basically, the Cornell method organizes a piece of paper into two columns: on the right notes and details are recorded, while on the left cues for those notes are recorded. A typical two-column entry might look like this:

|Cues |Notes and Details |

| | |

|Incas and their Culture | |

|Historical Background |Lived along the coast of Peru, |

| |from 1800 to 1400 B.C.E. |

| | |

| |Developed irrigation to water their crops with terraces and canals. |

| | |

| |Great builders of roads. |

| | |

| |Worshiped the sun |

While this method is quite useful, it can be enhanced with the inclusion of visual cues and images in the column on the left. The following example was developed by Joanne Ho, an exemplary teacher at Clark High School in Las Vegas, NV who helped me to integrate the arts with language arts instruction. Thus, these same notes from above might look like this:

|Cues |Notes and Details |

| | |

|Incas and their Culture | |

|Historical Background | |

| | |

| |Lived along the coast of Peru, |

| |from 1800 to 1400 B.C.E. |

| | |

| | |

| |Developed irrigation to water their crops with terraces and canals. |

| | |

| | |

| |Great builders of roads. |

| | |

| |Worshipped the sun |

By adding the images to the column of cues on the left, the student is given information that is related in a meaningful way to the detailed information on the right. As a teacher of students who struggled with language, reading, and writing for various reasons, I found these types of notes were quite useful for them. However, this visual two-column note method is not limited to use with students who struggle in school; students in honors and gifted classes have benefited from using this method as well.

To create notes like these for students, create a Word document with a two-column table and insert the verbal information. Print or copy the document onto an overhead transparency and during class the teacher draws the small images onto the page. Because I taught more than one section of each class, I used a second transparency for the drawings so that these could be fresh for each group. Also, students were encouraged to suggest the image cues used on the overhead and were also encouraged to use their own images wherever possible.

Teachers can modify this lesson strategy to model how to take notes by providing students with a copy of the notes without the drawings and the verbal information partially incomplete. The students can then fill in the images and/or fill in the spaces that are left by the teacher.

As a studying tool, this visual, two-column method allows the student to either fold the paper in half vertically or cover the right side of the paper and then use the visual and verbal cues on the left to recall the information on the right. In my experience with struggling readers in Las Vegas, these notes helped students to recall impressive amounts of details about the cultures and the creation myths that we read and discussed through these notes. (The mythology text that accompanies these notes is the textbook World mythology: An anthology of the great myths and epics by Donna Rosenberg.)

Image Notes

Image notes contain very few, if any, words and can be a great tool for introducing characters from texts with complex plots. Below is a portion of an example that I used to introduce students to the back story of The Odyssey through a visual/oral telling of The Iliad. Other teachers have used this same technique to introduce students to the relationships in Antigone as well Shakespearean dramas in which the convoluted nature of those relationships can prove daunting to students.

The visual notes for The Iliad (right) are accompanied by a great deal of language to describe an abbreviated version of the story. Students copy these notes, adding their own embellishments of the drawings on their own paper. During class, the drawings are markers for the major events in the telling; after class, the drawings are cues for important details that will inform the students’ reading of The Odyssey.

Simple stick figures like those found in this drawing can help the teacher to quickly draw the relationships among characters and alleviate fears of not having professional skill in drawing. Teachers could also enlist a student who likes to draw to illustrate the story as s/he tells it.

The drawings here were created with a drawing tablet and my laptop. In class, these same notes are created using Vis-à-vis pens and an overhead transparency. The resulting transparency is then easily copied for students who are absent, who need extra time with drawings, or who need accommodations for their learning disabilities.

Image and Text Box Notes

A third type of visual notes uses small drawings as cues and text boxes as spaces for taking verbal notes. The example below was part of a reading guide handout that I gave students for later episodes in The Odyssey. As a reading guide, students recorded information as they read the episodes. While the drawings were provided for the students, they were encouraged to add details to help them understand the reading. The handout was then used as a study guide for a final exam on the text.

The Odyssey: “The Great Bow” & “Death at the Palace”

Alternatives for Teachers and Students who are Reluctant to Draw

While not every language arts teacher may feel confident or have time to make the kinds of drawings illustrated for the visual notes shown here, there are resources available that can still incorporate images with text.

By using MS Word, a teacher has access to thousands of clip art images that can be used to substitute hand-drawn figures and relationships. These images can be accessed by clicking on Insert (on the menu bar) and then choosing Picture, and then choosing Clip Art. In more recent versions of Word, a secondary window will open up within Word and a search function is available. By typing in a keyword, the machine will search for images that are free for public use. To insert the image into a document, simply click on it and it will be transferred. When the image appears in the document, Word will treat like a letter on a line of text. To move the image freely around the document, select the image, go to Insert on the menu bar and choose Text Box. By doing this, the image is now linked to a text box and can be moved anywhere without disrupting the formatting for the verbal parts of the document.

An example of using the clip art for creating visual notes appears below. This cast of characters for A Midsummer’s Night Dream is adapted from a notes page created by Joanne Ho. These notes were made into handouts for students and an overhead transparency as part of a learning experience culminating in attending a live performance of the play. The teacher talks through the relationships of the characters as part of a plot summary, adding lines and details as she talks (see below for an example of the character relationships as the play begins and a full page of the characters on the next page).

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On-Line Resources on Note-Taking

Cornell Method PDF Generator:



This is a great tool for creating customized paper for taking notes in the Cornell method. Users can create paper for different sizes (legal, letter, A3, A4, A5), add space for holes to add the paper to a 3-ring binder, and the notes column can have ruled or graphed lines or can be blank. The user’s name, date, and class name can also be included. The pages can be printed as single sheets or double-sided. This could be a great tool for teachers who are interested in using the Cornell method and would like to provide students with models for how to use it.

Cal-Poly:



This site includes descriptions, advantages, disadvantages, and samples of different note-taking methods, including Cornell, outline, mapping, charting, and sentence methods.

Penn State University:



This site has a variation on the Cornell method used here and gives suggestions for the uses of the different areas of the paper used for taking notes, as well as suggestions for how to use the notes before, during, and after class.

West Chester University:



This site offers specific dimensions for dividing up paper for use with the Cornell method.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Beers, G. K. (2003). When kids can't read, what teachers can do: A guide for teachers, 6-12. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Beers has a very approachable and readable text that guides teachers through a number of strategies to help students who struggle in school, including a number of visual and kinesthetic strategies. Pre-service teachers have praised this book as being useful and practical in their preparation programs. Beers refers to the use of images within notes as logographic cues (see pages 129-130 and 195-196).

Eisner, E. W. (1998). The misunderstood role of the arts in human development. In The kind of schools we need: Personal essays (pp. 77-86). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

This is a concise essay that examines some of the misconceptions that have been attributed to the arts and ends with four components of the arts that can contribute to the education of students across the curricula: not all problems have single, correct answers; the form of a thing is part of its content; having fixed objective and having clear-cut methods for achieving them are not always the most rationale ways of dealing with them; the arts make discovery and expression possible (pp. 82-85).

Eisner, E. W. (2002). The arts and the creation of mind. New Haven: Yale University Press.

In this book Eisner presents a rich portrait of how the arts can contribute to the development of students and their minds in schools. Although this is a scholarly text, it has a fluid writing style that is quite inviting for teachers to read.

Gardner, H. (1993). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences (10th anniversary ed.). New York, NY: Basic Books.

This is the book in which the idea of multiple intelligences (the first seven, at least) are laid out in detail. Gardner explains his theory within the context of cognitive and developmental psychology.

Suhor, C. (1984). Towards a semiotics-based curriculum. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 16(3), 247-257.

This short article gives an accessible theory for how we think in a number of different ways that are interconnected, especially with language. Suhor has several useful charts to help explain his theory.

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Hippolyta

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Theseus

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Lysander

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Hermia

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Human child

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Egeus

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Demetrius

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Helena

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Nick Bottom

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Peter Quince

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Ass’s Head

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Fairies

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The Magical Forest

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“confused, foolish—and magic”

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Demetrius vs. Lysander

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Special flower

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Workmen

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Pyramus & Thisbe

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Puck

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Titania

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Oberon

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“The course of true love never [did] run smooth.”

“Lord, what fools these mortals be.”

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