Differentiating With Graphic Organizers

Use graphic organizers to challenge students, make learning exciting, and raise academic achievement!
This research-based resource shows how graphic organizers can strengthen students' critical and creative thinking skills and help differentiate instruction in the classroom. The author provides nine types of graphic organizers based on Bloom's taxonomy and sample applications for different subject areas and grade levels. With rubrics for providing quality feedback included, this hands-on guide demonstrates how teachers can: Promote the critical thinking processes of assuming, inferring, analyzing, prioritizing, and judging
Encourage the creative thinking processes of brainstorming, connecting, creating, and elaborating
Modify graphic organizers or create their own to meet individual learning needs

Patti Drapeau (pattidrapeau.com) is an internationally active educational consultant, author, and presenter, with more than twenty-five years of classroom experience. Patti conducts keynote sessions as well as short- and long-term workshops in the United States and abroad. She commonly presents on the following topics: differentiation, creativity, engagement, gifted education, student empowerment, and personalized learning. Patti is the founder of Patti Drapeau Educational Consulting Services and has received the New England Region Gifted and Talented award for outstanding contributions in gifted education and the Maine Educators of the Gifted and Talented award for exemplary service. Patti coached programs such as Odyssey of the Mind, Future Problem Solving, Explorer Vision, and math teams. She also developed a curriculum model for the regular classroom called ''Affective Perspectives: Combining Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking, and Affect,'' and authored a variety of articles for the Maine Exchange, Teaching Matters, and Understanding our Gifted. Her other books include Sparking Student Creativity: Practical Ways to Promote Innovative Thinking and Problem Solving, Differentiating with Graphic Organizers: Tools to Foster Critical and Creative Thinking, Differentiated Instruction: Making It Work, and Great Teaching with Graphic Organizers. Patti currently works as a consultant and she is a part-time faculty member at the University of Southern Maine. She lives in Freeport, Maine.

"Patti Drapeau has created an exciting resource that is incredibly useful to both novice and seasoned educators. She provides very clear and practical strategies for integrating graphic organizers, creative thinking, and critical thinking into classroom practices. I only wish that her book had been available to me as a beginning teacher."