Practicing What You Pin: Textmapping

Have you ever heard of textmapping?

So, a long time ago, I pinned an image that led me to this site. I spent a while exploring all the awesome information here and couldn't wait to try it in my classroom!

Long story, very short - textmapping starts with a scroll. Students take their reading and tape the pages together, creating a scroll that can be rolled out on the floor allowing the reader to view the text in its entirety, rather than flipping through pages. Once students have their scroll, they use different colored markers/highlighters/colored pencils to mark up, or "map," the text in ways that are relevant to their reading purpose.

I spent the next several months with 8-10 intervention students (these are students who do not qualify for special education services, but do demonstrate a significant struggle in ELA and/or math) textmapping like crazy! Overtime, I deviated a bit from the ideas on the textmapping website and modified it to fit my needs, but I was really happy with the results. I watched kids grow in confidence when reading and writing about a complex text and I really came to see value in getting struggling learners to picture the text as a "whole," which the scroll concept behind textmapping clearly encourages.

Well, fast forward three years... textmapping had seemed to fall of my map. For some reason, (you know, little things, like new curriculum, new standards, new grading policies, new evaluation models... THOSE earthshaking little things), textmapping disappeared from my lesson plans.

Anyway, about a month ago, I was talking to the co-teacher who shares one of my ELA blocks with me. We were discussing some of the struggles that a few of our students were having and I suddenly remembered textmapping. After providing a little history, she decided to give it a try with a small group.

The students were reading a great story called "Ghost of the Lagoon" by Armstrong Sperry. The objective was for students to read the story and then evaluate the thinking and actions of the main character and determine if he qualifies as a hero. On their scrolls, students were able to mark up the main character's thinking and actions (thinking in one color; actions in another). Once they did this, they were able to look at their scrolls and see all of their markings. This helps them make their evaluation. Then, it was time for them to put their answer in writing, using the evidence from the text to support their thinking. Their scrolls made this easy because now all they had to do was go back to each of the places they marked and include that information as proof of their argument.

I wasn't in the first day she tried this, but these are the pictures she snapped that show students working with their scrolls. She was so excited with how well the mapping went she actually texted these to me from school!

So, as we all get back to school after the winter break, spend some time on the textmapping website, or search around on Pinterest, and give it a try in your classroom!

Then, leave me a comment to let me know how it worked for you :)

Happy Teaching!!