Extending Thinking, Graphic Organizers, and Writing

Brenda Hill
Sep 08, 2008

Graphic organizers are used in all content areas for many purposes. Organizers are often used for structured note-taking, to guide reading, to guide writing, as a study and summarizing tool, or as a visual model of a skill or a performance. As we think about extending thinking for our students, graphic organizers are of utmost importance. Teachers may use graphic organizers from an acquisition lesson to extend thinking for students, or they may specifically select an organizer that supports an extending thinking skill to use in an extending thinking lesson or activity. In an acquisition lesson the choice of organizer is guided by this question: "How do I want my students to think about the content?" In an extending thinking lesson or activity we ask, "How do I want my students to use the organizer from an acquisition lesson to extend thinking?", "Which extending thinking skill is my focus for this lesson or activity?", and "Does the graphic organizer support the extending thinking skill chosen for this lesson?" Extending thinking skills include: compare/contrast, classifying/categorizing, inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, error analysis, analyzing perspectives, constructing support, abstracting. Identifying the extending thinking skill for the lesson/activity determines "which" organizer will be used. As we plan our extending thinking lesson writing also becomes a key focus. Research shows that "writing to inform" increases student achievement across all content areas.

How will I have students write to extend thinking of acquisition learning? One way is to make a writing assignment from the acquisition lesson graphic organizer. For example, if the students in science class have completed a compare/contrast organizer on the differences between moths and butterflies in science class, then students will write a compare/contrast essay from the acquisition lesson organizer. Students may also write from a completed organizer used in an extending thinking lesson.  For example, if students are "constructing support" for the reasons Congress should support the Lewis and Clark expedition, then they would use the information from the completed constructing support organizer to write a letter to Congress. 

There are many ways graphic organizers can be used to extend thinking through writing.  The important thing is to decide what assignments can be made from the organizer so that students are writing to extend thinking about the new learning.   Student performance and achievement will be greatly improved when students use acquisition learning to extend thinking through writing.