I love it when the students teach each other. Today, this exceptional group of HL historians at the International School of Toulouse drew together their studies of the Korean War by working together to categorise, link and annotate 25 political cartoons to create a ‘gallery walk’. The product was a superb piece of display and…
Category: Visual Literacy
Online Fishbone Diagram Template
I’ve created a new Fishbone (Ishikawa) Diagram template over at ClassTools.net.
Use “EyeSay!” to give visual feedback on student essays
“EyeSay!” is a new tool I have coded at www.classtools.net to help students and teachers get a useful visualisation of essay style and structure. Students simply copy and paste their essay from a word processor, and then the web application colour-codes its central stylistic features. For students, it helps them develop their writing – They…
“Create a Google Doodle to represent our topic”
At the close of a topic or as a revision exercise, ask students to design their own ‘Google Doodle’ to represent the essence of the subject. What symbols, colours, terms could they use? This is an idea from @littlestobbsy on Twitter.
Causation Diagram Template
The following image comes from an old textbook, and illustrates the respective importance of long, mid and short-term factors in causing World War One. I created a ‘blanked out’ version which I provide to students at the end of a topic and ask them to decide what factors they would place in the various spots in the…
Museum in a Box
I really like this idea from @ChrisWaterworth, who shared this nice picture of “Our school collection of Borrowers Homes” as a primary school project. This reminded me of the concept of a “Museum in a Box”, which would follow on neatly from the ‘Curate an Exhibition‘ task outlined in this earlier post. Once students had decided…
“Design a DVD Inlay”
As a way of consolidating or revising knowledge and understanding of a study unit, students have to design a DVD inlay for a fictional documentary film / biopic. They should give careful thought to the images to include, the cast list, the reviews, the ‘blurb’ at the back, and so on – using real DVD…
“Design a new page for your textbook”
Students identify an aspect of the topic that is not covered in sufficient detail in their standard level textbook. They then have to produce a page or a double-spread in the same style of the textbook covering that particular topic area, complete with sources, questions and other tasks as appropriate. Thanks to @BSB_Humanities for the…
Students design a Hollywood Film about the study topic
A great way to get students familiar with the key events of a historical person’s life and consider concepts of significance. Stage 1: Start by outlining the central task [themify_box style=”purple comment rounded” ] You are a Hollywood director producing a film about [person / topic]. You will produce a poster advertising your film, including: –…
Image Wipe
Provide students with an image with key details partly obscured. Ask them to anticipate what might be going on, when and where it comes from, and any other relevant questions (see image slideshow for ideas). Then uncover the image and ask them the same questions again. Finally, ask them to speculate about what happened before /…
“Open Me” Display Pieces
When producing a display poster summing up several ideas, students should identify a ‘cover image’ for each main part of the piece. This should be ‘lifted up’ to expose the written detail. See the image for an idea of how this works. Taking it further: An even simpler method is to take a piece of A4,…
Design a Cartoon
For a homework exercise, get students to design a political cartoon to illustrate one key aspect of the topic from either a negative or a positive perspective. No words allowed. In a subsequent lesson, the pictures are swapped around and each student answers the question “What is the message of this cartoon?” using the framework…
Students design a cover image for their topic packs
Overview: When you provide your students with a printed work pack, or even if they have their topic notes in a ring binder with separators, ask them to decide upon an appropriate cover image with an explanation of its relevance directly underneath. The image here shows examples from my Year 10 students, who produced front…
Speech-bubble PostIts onto paintings / photos / cartoons
Overview: Provide students with a photograph of a particular moment in history, then ask them to write speech-bubble PostIt notes to imagine what the characters might have been saying to each other. Taking it further: For cartoons, students have to provide a caption. This works even better if the cartoon has an original caption that it can…
Curate a Museum Exhibition
Provide students with a range of images relating to the topic. They imagine they are curating a museum exhibition on four separate walls. How will they categorise the images into four categories? How will they caption them? Examples: Portraits of Napoleon, Stalin or other dictators with a penchant for propaganda. Images of the Middle Ages. Images…
