Thursday, August 16, 2012

Using Wordle to Brainstorm

Wordle: Brainstorming worlde Click on the image to see a larger view.

Recently I used Worldle to help a student brainstorm for a personal essay he was writing. This student is a rising 6th grader. He has a strong vocabulary and is very creative, but has trouble focusing his ideas to create a consistent theme in his essay. He's a very visual learner, so I thought the Wordle could help him see the patterns in his brainstorm, and thus show him some possible themes. The exercise worked out well; he noticed that the names of his friends ("Superman" and "Matthew") were very prominent. Also, action words like "scored" showed up large. My student decided to focus his essay on his friendships with his teammates, and how the action of the game brought them together. I think the visual approach gave him a much better way in to the assignment than just writing down words would have done.