What Is A Graphic Organizer

[Pablo Tatts]

Helpyour students classify ideas and communicate more effectively with these free graphic organizer templates, available for download. They can be used to structure writing projects and help in problem solving, decision making, studying, planning research, and brainstorming.

Graphic organizers integrate both text and visuals. This has been scientifically proven to be an effective way of teaching and learning. Using them can be extremely useful for both teachers and students as they will make lessons more engaging as well as easily comprehensible.

We have listed below multiple types of graphic organizers you can use during various scenarios, whether you are reading, writing, doing research or studying for exams. Each tool is accompanied by a template that you can use right away.

A graphic organizer is a teaching and learning tool that is used to organize information and ideas in a way that is easy to comprehend and internalize. By integrating text and visuals, graphic organizers show relationships and connections between concepts, terms, and facts.

Graphic organizers can be used in all grade levels, and have proven to be effective learning tools for gifted children and students with special needs. And with adult learners, graphic organizers can help enable the connection between what they already know and newly acquired knowledge.

The persuasion map is an interactive graphic organizer that helps students familiarize themselves with the process of persuasive writing . It assists them with outlining and preparing arguments for their essays, speeches, debates, etc.

Step 2: Discuss the different significant elements that were involved in the story. These could be the characters, setting, problem and solution, etc. You can fill the story map during the discussion.

Step 2: Brainstorm ideas and information related to it. Write these down on branches emerging from the center. Make sure that you place them in a way that makes sense to teach or in a logical sequence around the center.

They come in handy when studying history as you can use it to display major historical events that occurred during a period of time along with important details such as dates and locations in which they took place.

Hierarchy charts visualize the elements of a system, organization or concept from its highest position to the lowest. Students can use this tool to understand the superordinate and subordinate categories of a topic and the relationship between them.

Lotus diagram is an analytical tool that can be used to breakdown broader and more complex topics into smaller components for easy understanding. It can be used for brainstorming and studying new topics.

This type of graphic organizer shows the causes and effects of an event. The cause is the reason why something has happened, and effect is the result of what has happened. Visualization helps clearly understand the different cause and effect relationships.

Using a cause and effect graphic organizer, identify the causes and effects related to the problem you are studying or writing about. There could be several models of cause and effect events, such as one cause leading to one effect or multiple effects, or multiple causes leading to one effect or multiple effects.

Here we have listed 19 types of graphic organizers for teaching and learning. Based on their varied purposes, you can utilize them in reading, writing, researching, brainstorming, and analyzing. Best of all you can use our Compare and Contrast Chart Maker to draw them.

Another graphic organizer that helps you visually represent a comparison of differences and similarities between two subjects, is the Venn diagram. What makes it different from the is that it can include more than two topics and one common area.

Although we have covered 19 types of graphic organizers in this post, there are plenty more that can be useful to our users. Know more? Mention in the comments section below to keep expanding the list of ultimate graphic organizers.

When selecting a graphic organizer for a specific project, you should consider the type of information you need to organize and the purpose of the project. Here are some tips on how to select the right graphic organizer:

Consider the audience: Think about who the audience is for the project. If the audience is young children, a simpler graphic organizer like a picture web might be more appropriate. If the audience is adults, a more complex graphic organizer like a timeline or a chart could be suitable.

Evaluate the effectiveness of different graphic organizers: Try out different graphic organizers and see which ones work best for you. Creately has different graphic organizer editable templates that you could use to create your graphic organizer based on the purpose.

Avoid overcomplicating the design of your graphic organizer: It should be easy to read and understand, therefore avoid using too many colors, fonts, or shapes which make the organizer confusing and difficult to read.

The purpose of a graphic organizer is to simplify and organize information. Including too much information can defeat the purpose and make the organizer overwhelming. Stick to the most important information and use the organizer to highlight key concepts and relationships.

Use clear and appropriate labels for each section of the organizer. Avoid using labels that are too vague or unclear, as this can cause confusion and make it difficult to understand the relationships between the different elements.

A graphic organizer, also known as a knowledge map, concept map, story map, cognitive organizer, advance organizer, or concept diagram, is a pedagogical tool that uses visual symbols to express knowledge and concepts through relationships between them.[1]The main purpose of a graphic organizer is to provide a visual aid to facilitate learning and instruction.[1][2]

In 1969, Richard F. Barron came up with a tree diagram that was referred to as a "structured overview."[6] The diagram introduced new vocabulary and used spatial characteristics and language written at the same level as the material being learned. In the classroom, this hierarchical organization was used by the teacher as a pre-reading strategy to show relationships among vocabulary. Its use later expanded for not only pre-reading strategies but for supplementary and post-reading activities. It was not until the 1980s that the term graphic organizer was used.[7]

Various theories have been put forth to undergird the assimilation of knowledge through the use of graphic organizers. According to Ausubel's Subsumption Theory, when a learner connects new information to their own preexisting ideas, they absorb new information.[8] By relating new information to prior knowledge, learners reorganize their cognitive structures rather than build an entirely new one from scratch. Educational psychologist Richard E. Mayer reinterpreted Ausubel's subsumption theory within his own theory of assimilation encoding. In applying the use of organizers to the assimilation theory, advance organizers facilitate prior knowledge to working memory as well as its active integration of received information. However, he warned that advance organizers are not beneficial if the tools do not ask the learner to actively incorporate new information or if the preceding teaching methods and materials already are well-defined and well-structured.[7]

Others find a basis for graphic organizers on schema theory developed by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget.[7] In psychology, schema refers to a cognitive framework or concept that helps to organize and interpret information. The brain uses these patterns of thinking and behavior that are held in long-term memory to help people interpret the world around them. Piaget's theory is that a scheme is both a category of knowledge and the process of acquiring new knowledge. He believed that as people continually adapt to their environments, they take in new information and acquire additional knowledge. Culbert, et al. (1998) posits that by using graphic organizes, prior knowledge is activated, and learners can add new information to their schema and thus improve comprehension of the material.[7]

In one study of 21 students on Individualized Education Plans, graphic organizers were used during the pre-writing process to gauge student achievement on the persuasive essay in a 10th grade writing classroom.[9] Explicit instruction on how to fill out the organizer along with color coding sections and sufficient class time to fill these out resulted in an 89 percent of students saying they felt graphic organizers were helpful in a post-assignment survey.[9]

One yearlong study of a 3rd and 5th grade California dual language classrooms found that through the use of graphic organizers, students increased higher-order thinking skills, enhanced vocabulary acquisition, and developed the academic language of science.[10]

In four studies on the effects of advance organizers on learning tasks, no significant difference was found from the control group who did not use organizers to learn as presented in a paper Richard F. Barron delivered to the Annual Meeting of the National Reading Conference in 1980.[12] In that same study, Richard F. Barron did find that student-constructed postorganizers showed more benefits.[12] Graphic postorganizers focus on learners finding the relationships of vocabulary terms by manipulating them in a diagram or schematic way after they have already learned these terms.[13]

Think about the last time you got a new phone or downloaded an app. Did you spend some time organizing your screen in a way that makes sense to you? When you think about it, your smartphone is a graphic organizer.

Note for teachers: Many of the templates in this article also offer a black-and-white printable version that you can use for assignments. Just click the image of the template you want to use to open in Lucidchart.

A KWL chart is a graphic organizer tool that lets students illustrate what they know, what they want to know, and what they have learned. This chart is very easy to use and encourages students to track their learning. These charts can be used individually, in groups, or by the entire class.

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