VISUALS - READING, UNDERSTANDING
AND CREATING VISUALS
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
Albert Einstein
READING, UNDERSTANDING, AND CREATING VISUALS
Types of Visuals
· Charts and Tables
· Diagrams
· Illustrations
· Graphs
· Time Lines
· Outlines
IV. Creating Your Own Visuals
· Charts and Tables
· Outlines
· Time Lines
· Mind Maps
· Free-Form Drawings
V. Selecting the Appropriate Visual
VI. Visual Connection with Test Taking Strategies
VII. Practice with Reading Passages
READING, UNDERSTANDING, AND CREATING VISUALS
Textbook authors often use visual aids to help their readers better understand the information they are presenting. Visual information reinforces and supplements reading material and helps the reader to learn and remember textual information. The type of information being conveyed determines what type of visual aid an author will use. Types of visual aids include:
· mind maps
· outlines
· charts
· diagrams
· graphs
· illustrations
· photographs
· timelines
In order to create an effective visual aid you have to:
· recognize the important elements in what you are reading
Make enough copies of the two visuals on pages 149-151 so all of your students have a copy of each. Before passing out the visuals, discuss the utility of visuals in textbooks.
chapter opener material: VISUAL #1
Tornado crushes roof of Clarkesville, Tennessee, churchA parishioner walks glumly through the wreckage of the roof of Trinity Episcopal Church in Clarkesville, Tennessee, the morning after a tornado devastated the city on January 22. The Trinity building, consecrated in 1881, was the third church in the Diocese of Tennessee to be destroyed by tornadoes within less than a year. (Episcopal News Service photo by Bishop Bertram Herlong)
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chapter opener material: VISUAL #2
Folding Instructions
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- Firstly fold the sheet in half along the line shown in DIG. 1 and then open it out again.
DIG. 1 - Fold the two top corners in to the center line to give the form in DIG. 2 .
DIG. 2 - Then fold the top large triangle over so that the two flaps formed in step 2 are underneath the large triangle. Your paper should now look like DIG. 3 .
DIG. 3 - From the form in DIG. 3 fold the two top corners into the center line again in such a way that you get the form in DIG. 4 .
DIG. 4 - Now fold the small triangle up over the two flaps to give DIG. 5 .
DIG. 5
chapter opener material: VISUAL #2 (continued)
- Fold along the center line so that the small triangle is on the underside of the plane on the outside along with the two flaps as shown in DIG. 6 .
DIG. 6 - Fold along the line AB on DIG. 6 then turn the plane over and do the same to the other side producing DIG. 7 .
DIG. 7 - Fold along the line labelled AB on the diagram first one way and then the other creasing really well. Tuck the triangular shaped depression inbetween the two wings to produce DIG. 8 . This stabilises the plane if you do not make it perfectly since to make it absolutely symmetrically is beyond my abilities.
DIG. 8
supplemental exercises
There is one supplemental exercise for this chapter. Information about it is provided on this page.
Exercise 11-1: Creating a Visual from Listening
Directions
1. Read the paragraph below, aloud, to your class. First, give your students the following directions: “As I read, draw a picture of what is being read. Don’t try to produce a work of art. Use simple lines and perhaps a title for your picture.”
Paragraph to Read:
The small brown cat, infected with a rare virus, escaped from his cage. He ran into the north side of the park through the rows of pine trees, and began moving west. He moved quickly between the trees and around the large rocks. He ran across a red wooden table which was blocking the entrance to the west side bridge. The bridge was built over the Cheyanaga River, one of the largest in the area; the bridge provided access to the park’s west side, a small island. Before the cat leapt from the table, and onto the bridge, he stopped when he spotted a dark purple bird eating seeds. The bird was in a field, just to the left of the table. It wasn’t common; it had a red ring around its long neck, and a yellow belly. Because the bird was moving quickly between the rows of sunflowers, it was hard to see what happened. Suddenly, purple feathers started flying, but then everything became quiet. The cat disappeared but soon after, was spotted running on the island.
- Ask your students to use their pictures to help them answer the following questions. (The answers are in blue.):
· What was wrong with the cat? (infected with a rare virus)
· Where do you think the cat came from and explain your answer (perhaps from an animal shelter or vet, as it said that it escaped from a cage.)
· Where did the cat run? (into the north side of the park, by pine trees)
· What did the cat run across? (a red wooden table)
· What river was mentioned? (Cheyanga)
· Where does the bridge lead? (to the park’s west side, as small island)
· Why do you suppose the cat stopped running? (spotted a bird)
· What do you think happened next? (The bird was killed and the cat crossed the bridge shortly after he killed the bird – the bird’s fate is an open interpretation.)
3. Now ask students if their visual was useful? Why or why not? What changes could they have made to their visual to help them remember more? Many of the students’ visuals will detail the process of the cat’s travels and the surroundings. The visuals may not have helped students remember the name of the river or the colors of the bird, cat, or table. Brainstorm with students for ways to have created visuals differently so as to have remembered more details. Reinforce the idea of annotations here. Labeling items in the picture and their colors could help.
- Have students rewrite the paragraph, using their visual as a guide. Discuss paragraphs in class. Were major details of the paragraph omitted from some the rewrites? What details did their pictures help them remember? What details were hard to remember? Remind students that auditory and multi-modal students may also have to describe aloud the path the cat took in order to rewrite the paragraph in its correct organization. Ask them what kinesthetic learners should do to remember more details?
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supplemental vocabulary quiz
Answers for Crossword Puzzle
Chapter ELEVEN vocabulary QUIZ
Across
2 visual aid that uses labeled marks on a straight line to show the time sequence or chronology of a series of events
5 a visual also known as a concept map
9 any of several chemical substances that transmit nerve impulses across a synapse
12 illustrates information by using parallel rectangular bars of varying length to contrast information
13 disorder an illness characterized by periods of mania
14 a type of aid authors use to enhance their meaning
Down
1 a sensory nerve ending
3 a region where nerve impulses are transmitted across a small gap
4 a visual aid that condenses large amounts of text material into a table
6 a drawing that allows an author to show readers sections or parts more clearly than a photograph could
7 a neurotransmitter that acts within certain brain cells to help regulate movement and emotion
8 represents data by using a circle to show the whole, and slices or wedges to show how that whole is divided up
9 a nerve cell
10 pertaining to three cycles
11 very linear organization of information, uses Roman Numerals
Exercise 11- l
Creating a chart
Chart example:
Erikson's Theory of Psychological Development
Stage
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Time of Occurrence
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Characteristics
And Successes of Stage
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Potential Difficulties
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Identity-versus- Role
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Adolescence
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Discovering self - strengths, roles that suit one's identity; major physical changes, decline in reliance on adults; shift to peer group; pivotal point in psychosocial development
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Confusion over role; lead to lack of stability which could cause problems later in life regarding relationships
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Intimacy-versus-Isolation
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Post-adolescence to Early adulthood
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Developing close relationships with others that are intimate on physical, intellectual, and emotional levels
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Feelings of loneliness; fear of relationships
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Generatively-versus-Stagnation
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Middle Adulthood
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Make major contributions to one's family, work, community, and society; helping the young
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Feeling that one's life has been trivial; sense of stagnation; no major contributions
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Ego-integrity-versus Despair
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Later Adulthood to Death
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Great sense of accomplishment, fulfilled
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Regret over what might have been achieved but was not
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Exercise 11- m
Creating an outline
Sample outline:
Body's Messages
I. Why Listen?
A. Identify problems early
1. listen everyday
2. listen throughout the day
B. Make necessary adjustments
1. Planting seeds today for our health tomorrow
2. Most problems today began long ago
a. result of illness
b. emotional upset
c. injury
d. invasion of outside pathogen
(1) dryness
(2) dampness
(3) wind
(4) heat
(5) cold
II. What Keeps Us from Listening?
A. Too busy - problem ignored
B. Fear
C. Not very sensitive - haven't the ability
D. Lack of understanding of what we are "hearing"
Exercise 11- n
Creating a MIND MAP
Sample mind map:
Body’s Messages
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Too busy
Why Listen? What Prevents Us from Listening?
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Identify Not very Lack of Fear
problem sensitive understanding
early -no ability |
Listen throughout listen everyday
the day
Make necessary
adjustments |
Most problems today began long ago result of
illness
Planting injury invasion of emotional upset
seeds outside
today for pathogen
our health
dryness
wind heat cold dampness
Exercise 11-o
USING FREE-FORM DRAWINGS AS A COMPREHENSION CHECK
Picture that corresponds with exercise:
Cartoon from J.D. Bransford & M.K. Johnson, “Contextual Prerequisites for Understanding” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, Vol. 11, 1972, p. 718. Copyright © 1972 with permission from Elsevier.