Graphic Organizers

I love graphic organizers, especially in the social studies classroom. They're a great way to trick students into getting a lot more information than they'd be willing to pay attention to using old-school notes. Recently, I created a graphic organizer for my students to analyze similarities and differences between the Aztec, Incan, and Mayan civilizations. We talked about the era, government set up, society, and religion. As my kids are notorious for copying things word for word rather than summarizing or abbreviating, old-school notes can take forever and often provoke more whininess than I have the patience for :). Graphic organizers tend to give the kids more ownership of what they are writing and more confidence that they are getting the info they need to be getting. The kids did better on their short answer questions on the South American civilizations test than the have on tests where the short answers were not based on graphic organizer notes. I feel they help most of my students better retain the info.