Using Maps for Writing

Tapping into the Power of an Ancient Tool

My experienceEau Claire Leader Telegram

Beloit Daily News

Carnegie (PA) Signal-Item

Maryland Gazette (Suburban Baltimore)

Madison Business First

Wisconsin State Journal

Freelancing: Isthmus, Wisconsin Trails, Madison Magazine, In Business, Wisconsin People and Ideas

Revolving door

Maps are fascinating.

Ken Jennings, Maphead (12)

“There must be something innate about maps, about this one specific way of picturing out world and our relations to it that charms us, calls to us, won’t let us look anywhere else in the room if there’s a map on the wall.”

“Most often, what we ask of a map is to help us get from here to

there.” Turchi, (82)

My question:How can I use the visual

tools of mapping to help students write better?

Is this a map?

Or this?

Imago Mundi: 600 BC

Ptolemy of Alexandria

Mappa MundiHereford’s

Mappa Mundi

c. 1290

Mappa Mundi Detail

Portolano

John Mercator: 1569

John Ogilby: 1675

John Snow: Cholera 1854

Rand McNally: 1922

Brain-mapping: Not a coincidence “The

distinctive feature of

brains such as the one we own is their

uncanny ability to

create maps.”

-Antonio Damasio

Maryanne Wolf: Proust and the Squid

Katie Wood Ray

•Reading like a writer with pictures books.•Give students choice in topics.•Creating experiences to write about•Continue reading aloud

Katy Wood RayShe asks “.. do you – their

teacher – think of them as writers as they are gathered around you What expectations do you have for them as writers?” (75)

What are the stages or steps of writing a history

essay?

Brainstorm on your own

Discuss as a table.

My process

Turchi says:

Writing can be broken in to two separate acts:

Exploration

Presentation

Purpose: To lead reader on a journey. (13)

My writing map

Back to clustering

Is anyone using maps for writing?

The Thompson Writing Program at Duke University suggests that writers use maps in these ways:

Geographic context

Help with sequencing

Visual representation

Analysis of history/anthropology of a setting

Maps have conventions

Using maps literally: The United States Before the

Civil War

Sequencing

Maps as Inspiration

Where is this?

Here be dragons

Map as metaphor

Maps and critical literacyWho made this map?

What was the political/historical/social context?

What was the purpose of this map?

What is at the center of the map?

What is and isn’t included?

What is at the center?

Who’s on top?

What does this map represent?

Distortion: Mercator

Gall-Peters Projection

How could map distortion be used in

Fiction writing

Persuasive writing

Historical writing

Science writing?

Maphead Activity

Going Forward:I will use maps more consistently in history

because I know my students need more exposure to learn geography.

I will use maps to help them write about history.

I will have student make their own writing maps.

I will have give students cluster before using or making a more traditional graphic organizer.