Title – Creating Symbols

By – William Suesholtz

Primary Subject – Social Studies

Secondary Subject – Other
Grade Level – 7-12

Lesson: Creating symbols for Social Studies notebook

Goal: Students will be able to use symbols in order to take and study notes for Social Studies

Objective: Teacher will facilitate by giving students topics for which students will create a “universal” classroom set of symbols that will become part of the classrooms daily language.

Grade level: 7-12

I use this with my self-contained class because written language is difficult for them and I prefer not too overwhelm them with notes. The symbols work well when we make time-lines or t-charts after doing a reading assignment. We do text chapters and the unit or section review questions. But in order to develop deep understanding, the kids need further explanation, discussion, and a means to refer to all of this. So, the symbols are a kind of a fun way to do notes without doing notes. Since they are not taking regents exams, I don’t need to develop the scaffolding skills that I do for my Global Studies class.

Procedure:

(1) Students are given a topic, let’s say the French Revolution, and are asked to identify the key points, events, expressions, people, etc.

(2) As they give examples, for instance “Napoleon” or “the Guillotine” the teacher writes them on the board.

(3) Accumulate about 10 — depending on the level of the students. Some prompting, I find is always needed.

(4) Organize the examples into a neat list on the board (or overhead). For each example have the students come up with a simple symbol. Sometimes I have a student draw them on the board. The students will copy these into a chart — as it appears on the board. So, for the French Revolution they have a set of symbols that can be used for the entire unit when discussing test-prep, or doing other activities. For example, Napoleon is represented by a crown. It is simple to draw and is easy for the kids to make the association.

(5) Use the symbols. I like to follow up with a time-line. I give my students the first and last dates and have them fill in the rest using the symbols. For example, the guillotine represents the Reign of Terror. So when they reach the 1790′s, rather than writing “Reign of Terror” their time-line depicts the guillotine.

(6) Keep using it. I use this regularly for all topics and I feel that it has helped them to deepen the students’ understanding and ability to recall information.

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William Suesholtz

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