Card
Picture Yourself
This strategy asks students to draw a picture from an event or place and add themselves to the illustration. Students then discuss their illustrations and the content with their peers. Based on the conversation, students modify their illustration to show what they learned or how their ideas have changed.
Picture Yourself
Summary
This strategy can be used for multiple purposes. Students can illustrate a scene from history, literature, or even a scientific event, and then add themselves to the illustration. This can show prior knowledge or it can assess what students have learned in a lesson. The main focus is for students to have a conversation with a peer about their knowledge over a specific topic.
Procedure
Decide whether students will do this as prior knowledge activity or to show what they have learned.
Pick the topic, event (scientific or historical), or place you want students to focus on illustrating.
Provide students with paper and drawing materials. Optional: This can be a digital activity using Google Drawings or Canva.
Ask students to draw a picture for the assigned topic, event, or setting and to incorporate themselves as part of the event.
Once students have completed their illustrations, have them take turns discussing their illustrations with a peer: describe the scene, explain what is happening, examine the symbols that were used, express feelings about the topic, and identify their role in the illustration.
Once everyone has shared, have partners compare the two illustrations.
After the conversation, provide students time to modify their illustrations.
Alternatives to consider: Students could create an illustration before a lesson and discuss/modify after the lesson, create a class mural with the illustrations, or use the illustrations to see what students already know about a topic.
Adapted from: Zwiers, J., & Crawford, M. (2011). Academic conversations: Classroom talk that fosters critical thinking and content understandings. Stenhouse Publishers.
Publisher
Downloads
Placement In Lesson
- Engage/Opening
- Evaluate/Assessment
- Explain/Closing
- Extend/Additional Learning Activity
Intention/Purpose
- Activate Prior Knowledge
- Analyze
- Compare & Contrast
- Conversation Starter
- Critical Thinking
- Cross-Curricular
- Elaborate
- Evaluate
- Hypothesize
- Interpret
- Reflection
- Review
- Speak & Listen
- Summarize
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 License.
Report copyright infringement »