This afternoon the Holden fourth graders were introduced to Popplet, a free tool for creating concept maps. A concept map is a graphical diagram that provides a visual representation of the relationship between concepts. Teachers often use concept maps as a strategy to facilitate students’ critical thinking and their ability to identify and understand similarities and differences among key concepts. This afternoon following a demonstration of the tool, each student used Popplet to create a character analysis concept map based upon their reading of The Map Trap by Andrew Clements.
Engaging students in character analysis projects helps to improve their critical reading abilities as students must key in on evidence within the story’s text in order to make inferences about the character and discover the character’s important traits.
Engaging students in character analysis projects helps to improve their critical reading abilities as students must key in on evidence within the story’s text in order to make inferences about the character and discover the character’s important traits.
