Tags
art, education, faculty meetings, grammar, middle school, professional development, school, Sketchnotes, sketchnoting, teaching, writing
Honestly, I am not much of an artist. Seriously. I have always envied folks who could draw amazing things. I can Zentangle, and do some paper crafting and jewelry making, but that’s about it. Creative – yes. Artistic – hardly.
The other day, my friend and artist Stacie James shared a post about Sketchnoting and I was enthralled. As a teacher, I am sentenced to, I mean, have the opportunity to attend professional development seminars that can be a bit of a drag, I mean, an enlightening experience. I immediately saw sketchnoting as a way to organize ideas and entertain myself at the same time. Then, I thought, “Oooh, faculty meetings could be more fun this way, too.”
My mind also wandered to my students and how many times I had seen them “enhancing” their notes with doodles and lettering and realized that I could totally use this to my advantage! My language arts class is a writer’s workshop structure with mini lessons for grammar skills. I use lots of short videos over a span of a week to develop and reinforce the particular skill and I wanted to find a way to put all of this information from these many sources into one place for students to refer back to. I could sit down at my word processor and create a review guide, or I could……
SKETCHNOTE it! (Notice, I am not a stellar sketcher, or letterer for that matter. But this is still way more fun to use as a review than a review page. )
To see how the pros do it and to get some inspiration, be sure to check out The Sketchnote Army site and Mike Rohde, or take a look at some of the beautiful work done by Allison Kimball in her sketchbook. Or just google it. Remember – it’s about the ideas, not art.
Have fun!