Graphic Organizers

Need a graphic organizer?  Check out these sites for downloadable organizers and interactive web tools.

• Houghton Mifflin English: Graphic Organizers - This site includes several graphic organizers that can be downloaded as PDF files and printed out.  Graphic organizers include Persuasion Map, Inverted Triangle, and Sense Chart.
• Scholastic Graphic Organizers for Reading Comprehension
• Freeology: Printable Graphic Organizers - Over 60 different graphic organizers that can be downloaded as PDF files and printed out.
• Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers - These graphic organizers can be printed out or downloaded as fillable PDF files.
• teAchnology Graphic Organizers
• Think Technology: Graphic Organizers - Users can download and print these graphic organizers in three different formats (HTML, PDF, or Word).  If the file is dowloaded as a Word document, users can type their ideas into the graphic organizer.
• ReadWriteThink Student Interactives: Organizing and Summarizing - 18 different interactive tools for organizing information including a Circle Plot Diagram, Essay Map, Story Map, and Venn Diagrams.

Related post: Bubbl.us Brainstorming Tool

Merriam-Webster Visual Dictionary Online

Merriam-Webster's Visual Dictionary Online has 6,000 images and over 20,000 terms and definitions that are divided into themes.  Users can browse through the 15 themes or search for terms or images.  Some images are of individual terms and others are detailed diagrams.  This is great tool to help understand complex definitions and to explain the mechanics of different objects.

Book Reviews, Author Info, and More

• Booktalks - Quick and Simple -- This site includes over 1,400 titles with at least one booktalk per title.  Users can search for books based on title, author, subject, or interest level.  These booktalks can be used to introduce books or to model different types of booktalks for students to write their own.
• Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site -- This site has numerous book reviews and lesson ideas.  Books are categorized by title, author, grade level, subject, or curricular area. 
• C-SPAN American Writers -- Information about American authors from 1600-1975 can be found on this site.  Authors include Lewis and Clark, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
• The Children's Book Review -- There are reviews of many books that range from beginner readers through teens/ young adults.  Users can search for books in a variety of ways including title, author, category, or age.  There are also author interviews.
• Cynthia Leitich Smith's Children's & Young Adult Literature Resources - This site has a variety of resources such as annotated bibliographies about a wide range of books, author/illustrator interviews, and resources for teachers.  One section that is particularly interesting is the Children's and Young Adult Book Writers' Reading List.
• Children's Authors & Illustrators on the Web - Links to the websites of authors and illustrators.
• Children's Picture Book Database at Miami University - Users can search for books by keyword or using a Boolean search.
• Kidsreads - Reviews, author interviews, and information about new books.
• AADL World of Reading - Book reviews written by children.
• Literature Learning Ladders - Numerous resources for teachers including lit webquests, lit circles, and e-books.

Storybird

Storybird is a free website where users can create their own stories or read stories that other authors create.  Users can start a Storybird by looking through the gallery of artwork or by themes.  If you choose to begin a story based on artwork, you choose which gallery to begin with and add selected images to your book.  Themes are keywords associated with the different artwork.  Adding artwork to your story is easy with the drag and drop tool.  Images can be placed in various positions on the page.  Text can be added by clicking on the textbox.  Users can also collaborate with others to create a story.

Click on the video below for more information about how to set up a Storybird account and how to begin a story.


Storybird Quick Tour from Storybird on Vimeo.

Visual Thesaurus Word Lists

The Visual Thesaurus site also has various word lists created by users.  The lists cover a variety of topics including sports, food, books, movies, and historical documents.  For each word in a list there are links to other lists that the word can be found in. 

These word lists can be used for spelling words, vocabulary units, alongside a novel study, as writing prompts, or during social studies units.  Students could also make lists of their own or make changes to current lists to make them better.  Here are a few of the interesting lists on the site:

• ABC's of Fabulousness
• National Spelling Bee '09 Finals
• Skateboarding Verbs
• Football Words
• 75 Cent Words
• Positive Words to Describe Someone

Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus & VocabGrabber.

Visual Thesaurus is another web tool that shows dictionary and thesaurus entries graphically in a web format.  Visual Thesaurus is a paid service, however users can try it out for free.  After you type in a word into the search box, results will show up in a web.  Words are color coded by part of speech.  If you click on one of the words in the web, search results for that word will be shown.  Synonyms are connected to the searched word by gray lines and antonyms are connected by red dotted lines.  The search results for the word "find" is shown to the left.

VocabGrabber a free tool on the Visual Thesaurus website.  This tool analyzes a piece of text shows the results as a word cloud.  Users can then sort the text by relevance, alphabetically, number of occurrences, or familiarity.  You can also show words in certain subject areas such as geography, people, math, science, etc. If you click on any of the resuts, you can see related words in a web format.  The image below shows the results for Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

Visuwords

Visuwords is a free online graphical dictionary that shows relationships between words in a web.  After you type a word into the search box, and a web will be created to show connected words.  The words are color coded to show the part of speech and type of connection each word has.  If you put the cursor over a word, the definition of that word will appear.  You can also zoom out to see more of the web or zoom in to see it in more detail.  The web below is for the word "smile."

Bubbl.us

Bubbl.us is free flash-based collaborative mind-mapping tool.  Users create webs of any size.  Users can use the drag and drop feature or use their keyboard to add and delete elements to their map.  Once a mind-map is created, it can be exported as a .jpg or .png file, embedded into a website/blog/wiki, or sent via a link.  Possible uses for Bubbl.us include

• Creating mind-maps with your class to discuss a topic
• Brainstorming writing ideas
• Making connections between different historical events or people
• Development and organization of ideas for a project

Twitter

Twitter is a microblogging service that allows people to share information in short text messages called "tweets."  Posts are limited to 140 characters.  Typically tweets describe what people are doing, thinking, or working on.  However, tweets can be responses to tweets or questions for others to respond to.

Here are some ideas for using Twitter in the classroom:

Twitteracy in the Classroom

Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom

My class creates tweets to review concepts we have learned or to wrap-up a lesson.  Students create tweets to tell the most important information in a lesson.  It is a good way to discuss summarizing.  Our latest tweets can be found on the right-hand side of this page.