Eight Types of Graphic Organizers for Empowering Social Studies Students and Teachers
Graphic organizers offer visual models that equip teachers and students with tools, concepts, and language to organize, understand, and apply information. Many teachers, concerned that social studies tends to overwhelm students, feel social studies is viewed as a complex and confusing subject unrelated to the contemporary world. Graphic organizers help students sort, show relationships, make meaning, and manage data quickly and easily before, during, and after reading and discussion. They are useful for reading difficult material, highlighting information, valuing cultural diversity, meeting needs of special populations, and supporting language learning. In this article, the authors present eight types of graphic organizers with descriptions, vocabulary, and examples applicable to citizenship and government, economics, geography, and history in pre-K-12 settings. Teachers should modify and extend the examples so learning is student centered, student directed, developmentally appropriate, active, challenging, and productive.