Story Maps or Story Webs (Creative Graphic Organizers)

Marzano's guidance on how students learn vocabulary is applied to literature here. Students not only explore how literary terms are applied to stories or novel chapters they read, (this in itself encourages close reading), but they also provide sketches and visual organizing metaphors to their understanding as they create a story map. Artistically inclined students have an opportunity to shine, and other students still reap the benefits. Their sketches and drawing help visual areas of the brain interact with language, strengthening important word-image connections. The student examples of story maps provided here inspire and speak a thousand words. (These are the best of my bunch -- not all of them did this kind of work!) Your students' literature-based handiwork can be put into their journals or onto the walls of your classroom, providing you and your supervisors with visual and vivid evidence of student engagement.