Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers provide a visual, holistic representation of facts and concepts and their relationships within an organized frame. They have proven to be effective tools to aid learning and thinking by helping students and teachers to represent abstract information in more concrete form, depict relationships among facts and concepts, relate new information to prior knowledge, and organize thoughts for writing. Graphic organizers exist in a variety of forms. Perhaps the most widely known is the web. Other types of graphic organizers include the concept map, sequence chain, story map, main idea table, flowchart, matrix, and venn diagram.

Graphic organizers may be productively utilized before instructional activities, such as reading or viewing a film, to activate prior knowledge, to provide a conceptual framework for integrating new information, and to encourage student prediction. During instruction, they can help students to process and reorganize information actively. After instruction, graphic organizers may be used to summarize learning, encourage elaboration, help organize ideas for writing, provide a structure for review, and assess the degree of student understanding.

When introducing students to a new graphic organizer, teachers should describe its purpose, model its use, and provide students with opportunities for guided practice. Once students become comfortable with using the organizer, more independent applications are appropriate. Finally, teachers can then encourage students to create their own organizers.