Instructor Guide: Mapping your Mind

Learning Objective:
Students will be able to organize, plan and develop their ideas along with textual evidence in order to produce a clear and coherent essay that compares a similar theme within Beowulf and Hamlet.

Assignment:
Students will create a mind map (interactive, online graphic organizer) using Mindmeister as a pre-writing activity to prepare for writing a comparative essay about a common theme in Beowulf and Hamlet.

Procedure:
1. Start a new map within the class account using the Username 104 Class of 2014 and the password english104 on Mindmeister. Use your name as the maps title. 2. Choose a theme for your map in the bottom left hand corner, which will act as the layout for your organizer. Begin building your map. 3. Use the issue you are going to analyze as your centerpiece of the organizer to establish the main concept of your essay. (It may be best to start two separate webs within your map so you have one for each text.) 4. Expand the map by connecting branches with your important information such as the ideas that will act as your topic sentences, concluding statements, and dont forget your textual evidence! Each of these should have their own box or bubble that connects to your main idea bubble in the center of your map. 5. Use the icons on the right side of the page to sequence your ideas and to mark your essential parts of the essay. For each piece of textual evidence, include a number icon to sequence the order in which you plan to use them. Consider using two icons in the same bubble if you plan to use more than one quote per paragraph. For example, if you have two quotes in your first body paragraph, include a 1 icon for the paragraph number and a 2 icon for the quote number. 6. Label your thesis statement using the star icon. 7. After you finish your map, print it out and use it to begin writing your essay.

Rationale for using Mindmeister:

Graphic organizers have always been effective in helping to plan writing. Mindmeister helps take that experience to the next, modern level. Mindmeister is a tool to layout and map ones thinking. With this application, students can create a web or tree of ideas to help design their thesis and to set up their comparison of the two texts. This is a technological application that students can interact with. They can formulate their thesis as a visual in which their peers and/or teacher can view by using a class login. In using Andersons SAMR model, I classify this lesson to be of the Redefinition category. I do not think this experience is able to be achieved by analog means because even though students can organize their thoughts on a printed graphic organizer, Mindmeister allows them to include images, move branches and idea connectors to different locations, highlight and underline different ideas efficiently, and export mind maps to multiple different formats like Microsoft Office or Google Drive. Not only does Mindmeister substitute for a printed graphic organizer, it provides students with new opportunities of sharing their ideas in addition to organizing information for their own writing purposes. Evaluation: Most, but not all, important aspects that students plan to develop in their essay must be introduced in this mind map organizer with the exception of the introduction, conclusion, transitions and supporting statements. Therefore, they must have: (70 pts.) A clear thesis statement (clearly identifiable by the star icon): 10 pts. A representation of ideas that will become the introductory and concluding statements for each paragraph: 10 pts. Clear understanding of the theme that the student is analyzing and how the two texts compare: 25 pts. At least 3 pieces of textual evidence: 15 pts. An organized structure which displays their sequence of ideas: 10 pts.

Standards:
Production and Distribution of Writing 4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1-3 above.) 6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technologys capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.