Wordscapes to support Literacy

 

What is it?:

An activity which allows pupils to display their understanding of a key concept in a unique way, whilst supporting/improving literacy.  Wordscape = a landscape made of words. Wordscapes are a blend of written words, phrases and images. An example within the wordscape would be to use the word 'sad' drawn like a frown. 

 

How's it work?:

Wordscapes are often used in Geography to promote literacy and develop pupils' ability to describe places using extended details and phrases, however this activity can easily be adapted to show a freeze frame of a concept or key idea in any other subject. 

 

First you have pupils investigate a key concept or idea.  Next you have them write down 15-30 words or phrases that describe or link well with the concept they have explored.  Then explain to pupils what they will create with those words - I usually show this using the idea of a slum dwelling made of wood and corrugated iron.  I draw the words slum housing, corrugated iron roof, and poorly constructed in the shape of a typical slum dwelling.  I emphasise usually at this point that spelling is very important in this activity and offer pupils the opportunity to get their spellings correct using textbooks or myself.  I also offer pupils an image on the board to act as stimulus for the 'landscape' element.

Variations:

Use www.tagxedo.com or try using the wordfoto app for iphone/ipad for a digital version of this activity (@johnsayers has an AMAZING example of wordfoto used to describe sand dunes - https://twitter.com/JOHNSAYERS/media)

 

Where did this come from?:

I first came across the idea of using wordscapes while looking through a dog eared copy of 'Thinking Through Geography' - but I know the use of it predates that book as well.

Tweet2Terrific

What is it?

A strategy to improve literacy skills using social media as a hook.

How does it work?

Pupils are to 'tweet' a peer what they have learnt or the definition of something or an explanation for how something works.  Pupils can use text speak and # just as they would on Twitter and must stick very strictly to the 140 character limit.

Next, pupils pass their tweets to a peer who reads, deciphers and then rewrites their peer's tweet into a terrific sentence/paragraph about the same concept - must be grammatically correct and will not have a world limit.

Possible adaptations???

• In upper school pupils can actually tweet the teacher their ideas, teacher runs the feed to their twitter page on the board and pupils can then pick from the responses on the board which they'd like to make terrific (see example from @FMGeoggers to the right:
• As in the original, however a third step can be added where another peer assesses the finished terrific sentence/paragraph.