Using Graphic Organizers for Vocabulary Development
Learning vocabulary is a key component of developing literacy skills. If a student doesn’t know the vocabulary relevant to a text, he or she will have difficulty comprehending what they are reading (McLaughlin, 2015). While most teachers would agree that this is true, the approaches teachers take to learning vocabulary are often misguided. According to current research, learning vocabulary via traditional methods, such as writing definitions and taking weekly vocabulary quizzes, is not as effective as utilizing methods that require students to use words in a variety of contexts, discuss their meanings, and consider how the words relate to course concepts (Anderson & Nagy, 1992; McLaughlin, 2015). Many of these alternative methods are graphic organizers, visual representations of ideas that promote vocabulary development (McLaughlin, 2015). Julie and I embraced these methods by selecting three terms/concepts used in the articles we’ve discussed over the past three weeks and discussing which graphic organizers would best help our students understand these terms.
When choosing three terms/concepts for analysis, Julie and I tried to find terms that were important in each of our three articles, because these terms would therefore be the most relevant to climate change as a whole. We also tried to choose one term that was emphasized in each of the articles we discussed, but we were flexible with this criterion. After narrowing down our search to about six concepts, Julie and I selected the three that we felt were most crucial to understanding climate change. The three terms/concepts Julie and I selected for this analysis were: historical evidence of temperature change, greenhouse gases, and climate-induced weather changes. Historical evidence of temperature change was the primary topic of our first article, titled Paintings, sunspots and frost fairs: Rethinking the Little Ice Age, but was a concept acknowledged by each of our articles (Royal Astronomical Society, 2017). The researchers who contributed to this first article compared modern, sophisticated methods of temperature measurement to historical evidence including sunspot numbers, volcanic eruptions, reports of frost fairs, artwork, and biological proxies such as tree rings and insect records. Julie and I felt that this was an important concept to discuss because it shows students that historical records of temperature can be incomplete, biased, and sometimes misleading. Scientists studying temperature change over time must use a variety of sources to get the clearest picture of historical climate change, and sometimes new technologies, such as isotope samples from Antarctic ice cores, can shed light on previously held notions.
The second concept we chose was the phrase “greenhouse gases.” We initially considered selecting “ozone” as our second term, because that was the primary topic of our second article, The Ozone Hole Was Super Scary, So What Happened To It? (Blakemore, 2016). However, greenhouse gases were discussed in every article we read, and we thought this more broad topic would generate a more effective graphic organizer than the term ozone, which may be too specific to make an organizer for. Furthermore, students in any introductory biology class must understand greenhouse gases in order to understand climate change as a whole, so using a vocabulary strengthening activity to teach this term could be especially helpful.
The third concept Julie and I selected was climate-induced weather changes. Truthfully, we would have selected ocean warming as a topic for this week’s discussion, but Julie and I already made graphic organizers as our extension strategies last week, so we decided to mix things up with a slightly different topic. Earth's oceans are warming 13% faster than thought, and accelerating, the third article Julie and I analyzed, reported that the warming of the Earth’s oceans was causing weather patterns to change, leading to events such as floods and hurricanes (Abraham, 2017). Our other articles also touched upon the effects global warming has and will have on weather patterns. Global warming is a topic discussed in every environmental studies class, but discussing the causes of global warming, the effects is has on weather, and the potential solutions to those weather events ties in nicely with the standards students are expected to meet for this biology unit. Therefore, we felt that a graphic organizer would greatly help students organize their thoughts with respect to how global warming affects weather.
Graphic organizers are useful for developing students’ vocabularies because the visual designs aid students’ memory, completing the graphics in groups promotes discussion of the concepts, and generating graphic organizers forces students to summarize the material by selecting key points (McLaughlin, 2015). In our discipline, biology, there are a few graphic organizers in particular that are useful. Semantic maps are recommended by McLaughlin (2015) because they can be used before, during, and after reading. They help teachers assess the prior knowledge level of their students, and they can be revisited to add more information or write summaries. Similarly, concept of definition maps can be used before, during, and after reading, and are useful for helping students make connections between their prior knowledge and new topics (McLaughlin, 2015). Julie and I used a concept of definition map to summarize the key concepts of ocean warming last week, and found it very useful for remembering the most important information of the topic. As a biology student, I used Venn diagrams frequently, as biology involves comparing the structures and functions of many terms, and Venn diagrams are great for discussing similarities and differences (McLaughlin, 2015). For example, I’ve seen Venn diagrams used in my field experience to compare prokaryotes and eukaryotes, animal cells and plant cells, and the processes of mitosis and meiosis. While there are many other types of graphic organizers that could be used in biology classes, these few in particular, as well as the strategies Julie and I selected that are outlined below, stand out as those that would be most helpful for students.
The three graphic organizers Julie and I chose as our favorites were semantic maps, the Frayer Model, and Science Memory Bubbles. Most graphic organizers are quite similar, and having already used concept of definition maps last week, Julie and I selected these three because they provide great flexibility for teachers. For example, semantic maps have a freeform design that depends on student responses (McLaughlin, 2015). Therefore, we felt that this type of graphic organizer would work well with our first concept, historical evidence of temperature change, because this concept is a bit open-ended, and would foster great classroom discussions as students complete their maps somewhat differently. In this case, the teacher would choose the topic that lies in the center of the map, historical evidence of temperature change, and students would write in the surrounding bubbles as they read (McLaughlin, 2015). Responses that students could write around the center bubble include sunspot numbers, volcanic eruptions, reports of human uses of land, artwork, literature, actual temperature records, and biological proxies such as tree rings and insect records. After students complete their maps individually or in groups, students can reflect on their maps as study tools, because the maps organize the key points of the unit. Going forward, Julie and felt that this technique lends itself to scaffolding quite nicely. Initially, a teacher may have to provide students more guidance with this open-ended graphic organizer, but as students become more familiar with the technique, the teachers can take a step back and allow students more control over their learning.
The other two graphic organizers we chose are a little more rigid, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. These techniques provide a concrete way for students to organize their thoughts about less open-ended concepts. For our second term, greenhouse gases, Julie and I chose the Frayer model as our graphic organizer. We both loved the Frayer model when we read about it, and thought greenhouse gases was the term that best fit this technique. The Frayer model prompts students to understand words within the context of a reading by defining the word, describing its characteristics, and listing examples and nonexamples of the word (Richardson, n.d.). This technique works well for individual words, and greenhouse gases was the most important term from any of our articles. Lastly, Julie and I decided to use a Science Memory Bubble to describe climate-induced weather changes. Buehl (2014) describes the strategy of using History Memory Bubbles, but Julie was inspired to adapt this technique to science after seeing her mentor teacher do something similar. This strategy requires students to put information into the context of larger ideas by filling in bubbles for who/what the concept is, as well as the problems, solutions, and outcomes of that phenomenon (Buehl, 2014). We thought this technique would work quite well with climate-induced weather change, as the problem/solution and concept/definition frames were the two text frames most heavily used in the article most relevant to this concept. For her blog, Julie chose the Science Memory Bubble and the concept of climate-induced weather changes, and allowed me to choose between the other two options.
The graphic organizer I chose to specifically model was the Frayer Model for the term greenhouse gases. The Frayer Model is useful for defining unfamiliar vocabulary terms (Richardson, n.d.). This is done by placing the vocabulary term at the center of the model, and having the students fill out the surrounding four sections as the read or after they read a text. Those four section are: definition, facts/characteristics, examples, and nonexamples. This model helps students learn the term in the context of the unit, apply their understanding by thinking of examples and nonexamples, and activate their prior knowledge and connect that knowledge to new material, a key component in constructivist learning (Richardson, n.d.; Tracey & Morrow, 2012). I thought the use of nonexamples was an interesting twist, because knowing what a concept isn’t can be as important as knowing what the concept is. An alternate form of the Frayer model described by Buehl (2014) uses examples and nonexamples as two of the four sections, but instead used essential and nonessential characteristics as the other categories. Another variation, which could be useful for review, is to give students a completed chart and have them determine what the central key word should be (Richardson, n.d.) For the purposes of this activity, I chose the first method described by Richardson (n.d.).
When using the Frayer Model in the classroom, there are five steps a teacher must take (Richardson, n.d.). First, the technique itself should be introduced using a common word, such as the term rectangle, so the students understand the purpose of the Frayer Model and how it is used. Second, the teacher should complete any frontloading exercises, if necessary, and have students read the selected text. Third, the teacher must select the key term for the center of the Frayer Chart and ask students to help complete the chart. After that, students can practice filling out the chart in groups using another term. Last, students share their completed charts with each other and the class for discussion. Julie and I agreed that the Frayer Model was an excellent graphic organizer because it requires students to summarize, in their own words, the key points of a concept, apply their knowledge by listing examples and nonexamples of the term, and discuss their understanding with others (Richardson, n.d.). The Frayer Model I completed for the term greenhouse gases is shown below:
In my Frayer Model, shown above, I placed the term greenhouse gases in the center. Ideally, students will be exposed to multiple texts that use the same term, so that they may use the graphic organizer as a way to summarize those texts in one convenient location. Because greenhouse gases were discussed to some extent in each of our texts, I used all three texts and my prior knowledge to complete the chart. The definition I used was written in my own words, and the characteristics I chose were those that I felt were most important from my prior knowledge and the readings. In the examples and nonexamples sections, I included the major gases in the atmosphere, as well as some other common gases students would be familiar with.
I found the Frayer Model to be a very useful graphic organizer for a term like this. This type of graphic organizer wouldn’t work for all terms, such as the word “ozone”, because students may not know how to include examples and nonexamples of such specific terms. Nevertheless, this organizer could serve as a great reference for students when studying. They can easily look back on this chart to see the definition, characteristics, and important examples of this crucial concept. The Frayer Model works particularly well with greenhouse gases because students will be exposed to this topic via many texts, and should have plenty of background knowledge of greenhouse gases. Using the Frayer Model can help them take this enormous amount of information and consolidate that into one handy tool for study.
References
Buehl, D. (2014). Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning (4th ed.). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
McLaughlin, M. (2015). Content Area Reading: Teaching and Learning for College and Career Readiness. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Tracey, D.E., & Morrow, L. M. (2012). Lenses on Reading: An Introduction to Theories and Models. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
