Visual frameworks for academic learning
Giving students feedback on their writing takes time.
Use frameworks and academic guidelines for each assignment as a “language and skills template” for teacher to student conversation.
Sit down and connect with your students’ assignments while writing notes in the margins of their papers.
Keep a copy of your work. Often the detailed and helpful observations you make about a student’s learning process will come in handy while writing college letters of recommendation.
“There is such an intimate connection between the way we look at things and what we actually discover. If you can learn to look at yourself and your life in a gentle, creative, and adventurous way, you will be eternally surprised at what you find. In other words, we never meet anything totally or purely. We see everything through the lens of thought. The way that you think determines what you will actually discover.”
From John Donohue’s, Anam Cara
Visual composition and written composition are more similar than one would think. We cut up our ideas into shapes and sizes, whether we realize it or not.
To make academy level learning tasks more approachable and enjoyable for high school English students, I have developed a series of visual frameworks to make available to teachers and students everywhere.
Visual frameworks help writers fire their brains conceptually while wrestling with the chore of complex reading and analysis tasks. My drawings motivate students to genuinely appreciate critical thinking tasks, adding friendly methods of literary sophistication to their learning experiences.