Writing Across the Curriculum

Dr. Karen Mitchell received her WAC certification at Marshall in 1995 and has been training new WAC professors at the fall workshop for many years.

To encourage her mathematics students to process information about certain concepts or to organize their ideas before beginning a writing project, Dr. Mitchell adds a creative twist to GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS.

WAC Home What is WAC? Resources for Instructors Become a WAC Professor Marshall WAC Committee Fall Workshop Multimodal Compositions WAC Best Practices	WAC Best Practices		What are YOU doing? If YOU have a "Best Practice" that you would like to share please send it to felton3@marshall.edu
	Dr. Karen Mitchell received her WAC certification at Marshall in 1995 and has been training new WAC professors at the fall workshop for many years. To encourage her mathematics students to process information about certain concepts or to organize their ideas before beginning a writing project, Dr. Mitchell adds a creative twist to GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS.

	What Does a Graphic Organizer Look Like? Class Example:	Graphic Organizers What is a graphic organizer? A graphic organizer is any type of visual display or diagram that details the structure of a concept or the relationships among concepts or events. What role in instruction do graphic organizers have? For instructional purposes graphic organizers can be used to: present content provide guidelines for assignments assess student understanding improve students' organizational skills and critical thinking increase in-class communication encourage more strategic learning among students. How can students use graphic organizers? Students can use graphic organizers to: process information into meaningful components differentiate among essential and nonessential details recognize patterns organize material prior to solving problems or completing a more complex task When should graphic organizers be used? Graphic organizers can be used prior to the start of a lesson, at any point during a lesson, or after a lesson. For example, before a lesson begins, graphic organizers can be used as an aid for reading and summarizing the text. At the beginning of a lesson they can activate prior knowledge or review the work from an earlier class. During the lesson they can help students contribute to the discussion of new concepts. At the end of the lesson they can be used to summarize or review the key points of the lesson. After the lesson they can become a component of the assessment plan. *
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