#SOL20: Maps
A board covered in canvas protecting maps. Black and white maps. Maps of farmland. Maps that showed crops, waterways, and entrances and exits for fields. My first remembrances of maps were maps that my dad used in his part-time work at the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) office.
These maps were a part of family life. We would wait in the car after Sunday Mass while Dad met with a farmer. Kids in a car. Sometimes reading. Sometimes writing. Sometimes playing games like “I Spy.”
When completed these black and white maps would have markings on them in colored pencil noting changes. Each map was a section of land. One square mile. 640 acres of land. Math, Social Studies, and a lot of talk. An interdependence of content decades and decades ago.
History is filled with maps that share information about exploration, settlement, and expansion of populations. How do the visuals add to our understanding?
Are maps important today? Why? What maps do students need to learn about? What maps do students need to create?
Let’s face it. Maps are readily accessible through google and our smart phones or gps devices. It is easy to get oral directions or a map from a business location online.
But what about maps like Georgia Heard’s Heart Maps? What about capturing and creating connections between ideas that I want to remember. Heart Maps add another dimension to writing and then reading. Not familiar with Heart Maps? Check out this link for additional details.
What skills do you use to understand maps?
What maps do you use on a regular basis?
Are you a map consumer or a map creator?
Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for this weekly forum. Check out the writers and readers here.
Additional Resources:
NEA and Maps (link)
US Interactive History Map (link)
Heart Maps (link)
#TCRWP: 3 Tips
Day 3 Countdown . . .
Tip #3.
Working with Jeff Anderson’s Patterns of Power this week in Marie Mounteer’s section has been a special treat in a section where our focus has been on Interactive Writing,
The steps for a lesson.
When to use.
Work with Conventions. Spelling. Capitalization.
Work with Grammar.
Beginning with the standards.
Using student writing to determine needs.
Formative assessment at its best.
Analyzing student writing to plan for one small group of three students with different needs.
Lifting the level of work for all.
It all began with this:
Everything you will need for planning is in Jeff Anderson’s book. Sample sentences from fabulous literature that you will be reading to your students. The only exception would be an actual sentence from the reading students are doing in your classroom.
Everything
is
in
Jeff
Anderson’s
book.
Don’t consult other sources like TpT!
Use the research-based work from Jeff Anderson! (never a rip off) as you work and plan with a partner – Priceless!
Tip #2
Simone Fraser and Toolkits
What do you include?
- Mentor Texts
- Checklists from Writing Pathways
- Progressions from Writing Pathways
- Tools to do big work (micro-progressions! Also see Kate and Maggie and DIY Literacy – link)
- Anchor Chart – Anchor Charts for the whole unit as well as charts from previous years
How do you organize?
So many possibilities. By units or within bends.
“I organize by the stages of the writing process.”
Working collaboratively to create tools and share . . .
Tip #1
Do.not.ever.pass.on.an.opportunity.to.hear.Georgia.Heard. What an inspiring keynote!!!
Her writerly life will inspire you as she details her process and shares the final product.
Her student examples will bring you to tears.
Gaspar’s Heart Map with a single wavy line down the middle to represent the line at the Mexican border. He wrote a poem off of that map about his Mexican heart and American heart with alternating lines written in English and Spanish. Awe-inspiring.
“Heart maps are a powerful tool for writers and writing. No one has ever said, ‘I have heart map block.’ Many students have said (prior to heart mapping), ‘I don’t know what to write about.’ Small moments can change us. My writing teacher who wrote ‘add more details’ was really saying, ‘pay attention and gather ideas for your writing.'”
What are you learning this week?
How are you filling and fueling your brain?
How are you filling and fueling your writing heart?
Resource - Full 