GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS & OUTLINES TO DEVELOP WRITING 2

Graphic Organizers and Outlines Develop Students’ Writing in Social Studies

How do you begin developing an essay? Do you have a method for creating an outline

or do you immediately dive into answering the essay prompt? Have you directly been guided or

taught a strategy to use while planning an essay? For Education 403, Reading in the Content

Area, my fieldwork hours were completed at DeWitt Clinton High School a local school in the

Bronx. Since my concentration is social studies, my time was spent in a Global History and

Geography classroom. After several weeks of observing, it became clear that students in these

classes struggled with both their reading and writing skills.

The cooperating teacher in this class used primary sources with corresponding

questions regularly in the classroom. However, many students struggled with understanding the

main ideas behind these documents because they lacked the ability to comprehend what the

questions were asking. Student left these worksheets blank and did not construct responses to

the questions. In further discussions with my cooperating teacher, he mentioned that he was

concerned with how students were going to perform on the thematic essay section of the New

York State Regents Exam.

A thematic essay requires students to select two historical events or individuals that both

relate to the theme that is presented in the prompt. Common themes that appear in thematic

essay prompts include revolutions, human rights violations, nationalism, political revolutions,

and science and technology. In order to address the needs of the students, I examined the

different ways I could help students become better writers in social studies. The main question

that I wanted to answer in my research was, how could I help students develop the skills

necessary to become better writers when developing thematic essays?

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Review of Literature

A common writing strategy that has been suggested by various professionals and

researchers in the field of education is to outline essays by using graphic organizers. There are

many different ways in which outlines can be structured. However, after examining the literature

I have borrowed and adopted suggestions from Shanahan (2014), Shanahan (2014), Meyer

(1995), and Sundeen (2007) to create an outline that would be useful for students while

developing thematic essays in social studies.

Shanahan and Shanahan (2014) discuss how teachers need to teach their students the

discipline specific skills that historians use daily in the field to strengthen their reading and

writing. When writing in the content area of social studies, they suggested that students should

make relationships among events by using a “History Events Chart.” The History Events Chart

requires students to summarize historical events and explain the connections between these

events. The History Events Chart would be useful to students as they are developing a thematic

essay. A thematic essay requires students to make connections between different historical

events, individuals, and ideas and relate those comparisons back to the theme of the essay

prompt.

Meyer (1995) wanted to test the efficacy of graphic organizers when it came to guiding

students’ writing. In this study, Meyer collected pre and post writing assignment samples from

her students. Students were divided into two separate groups. One group in the study used a

graphic organizer to plan and develop their essay and the other group did not. At the end of the

study, it became clear that the experimental group that used graphic organizers when writing

scored higher on the writing samples when compared to the control group (Meyer, 1995).

Therefore, introducing students to a graphic organizer based outline was beneficial to

developing their writing skills.

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Sundeen (2007) introduced the graphic organizer writing strategy that he referred to as

“Three Big Ideas.” The goal of this specific graphic outlining strategy was to have students

develop three main ideas or concepts that they would be addressing their writing assignment.

These three main ideas are supposed to act as building blocks for the body paragraphs of the

essay. Students can then move into developing an introduction, conclusion, and include any

other background information. This is a formulaic strategy that students could always refer to

when writing across the content areas. In a social studies classroom this is particularly useful

because students can focus on the two historical events, individuals, or ideas as their building

blocks of their thematic essay. Once students have identified their building blocks they will be

able to construct the remaining sections of their essays.

Sundeen (2007) included a case study of a student named Juan. This particular student

struggled with organizing his essays. Therefore, the teacher introduced Juan to an essay

planner that was numbered in order to help this student organize his thoughts cohesively. As a

result, Juan was more enthusiastic and engaged in his writing assignments (Sundeen, 2007).

Therefore, pre-planning essays will help students organize their writing.

Area of Focus

Purpose

The overarching goal of this research was to help students become better writers.

Students in a Global History and Geography III course were introduced to a research-based

writing strategy of essay outlining to develop thematic essays.

In New York State, students are required to take end of the year assessment exams

known as regents exams. The social studies regents exam consists of fifty-multiple choice

questions, a thematic essay, document based questions, and a document based essay. In order

to successfully complete these types of exams, students need to be proficient in both reading
GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS & OUTLINES TO DEVELOP WRITING 5

and writing. The most challenging section of this exam is the thematic essay. In this section of

the exam students need to select two different historical events or individuals that relate to the

“theme” of the essay prompt. Students then need to connect these two events or individuals and

develop an essay that meets the requirements of the task outlined in the directions of the essay

prompt. If students are taught how to properly analyze the theme and task provided to them,

they will be successful in the development of their essay.

Participants

Four students from a Global History and Geography III class at DeWitt Clinton High

School were selected by the cooperating teacher to participate in this project to develop their

writing skills. The teacher selected these students to partake in this research because he felt

that they would benefit from developing the writing strategy of outlining. The students who were

involved in the thematic essay outlining research project included Thomas, Samia, Chrissan,

and Angel Grace.

Procedure

To help students develop their writing skills, I examined how students attempted to

develop a thematic essay on their own without being introduced to new writing strategies. To

accomplish this, I selected a thematic essay prompt from a previous regents exam and asked

students to create an outline for how they would structure this essay question on a piece of

loose-leaf paper. The thematic essay prompt that students worked with was from the June 2013

Global History and Geography Regents. The theme of the essay was change and revolutions.

Figure 1 is an example of a student’s outline that was developed before they were exposed to

the graphic organizer outline method.

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After students completed the first essay outline, I introduced and modeled how to use

and fill out the “Thematic Essay Outline” that was created to help students develop thematic

essay questions. When modeling this outline method to students, I used a different essay

prompt. The thematic essay prompt that I used to model this strategy to students was from the

January 2010 regents and the theme focused on culture and intellectual life. Figure 2 is the

Thematic Essay Outline that was created for students.

The Thematic Essay Outline that was created was adopted from the ideas and writing

strategies that were introduced by Shanahan (2014), Shanahan (2014), Meyer (1995), and

Sundeen (2007). They all addressed how graphic organizer outlines could be used by students

while they prepare to write an essay. Therefore, the Thematic Essay Outline that was created

for students in this study resembled a graphic organizer outline. Students would be able to
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compare and contrast their selected historical revolution. In addition, sections were included in

the outline to help students develop an introduction paragraph, a conclusion paragraph, and a

thesis statement.

Also, an additional handout was distributed to students that provided them with a list of

the common themes that have been used in the thematic essay section of the regents exam in

previous years. Providing students with a list of common themes was useful because they

began to think about which historical events or individuals they would select if one of those

themes were to show up on the regents exam that they would be taking at the end of the year.

After I modeled how students should complete the outline that was created, they

revisited the original thematic essay prompt. Students then used the same June 2013 thematic

essay prompt and created an outline using the, “Thematic Essay Outline.” Having students

complete the same essay prompt two times allowed me to assess and compare the two

different outlines students created. By comparing these two outlines, I gained insight on how

this writing strategy helped students when they developed a thematic essay. Figure 3 is an

example of a completed Thematic Essay Outline.

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Once students finished constructing an essay outline using the Thematic Essay Outline

that was introduced them, they were asked to respond to six self-reflection questions. These

self-reflection questions allowed students to respond to the effectiveness of the writing strategy

that they were introduced to. Student were directed to answer yes, no, or other to these

questions. The questions that were asked are as followed: Question #1 I have a better

understanding of what a thematic essay is, Question #2 I am more confident in my ability to

write a thematic essay in the future, Question #3 I am now aware of some of the themes that

may appear on the thematic essay section of the regents exam, Question #4 the Thematic

Essay Outline allowed me to organize my thoughts, and Question #6 Overall, the Thematic

Essay Outline will be beneficial and help me develop well written essays in the future. Figure 4

is a graphical representation of the results from the self-reflection questions that were posed to

students.

Figure 4

Thematic Essay Outline Self-Reflection

4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
Question #1 Question #2 Question #3 Question #4 Question #5 Question #6

Number of Studnets who answered Yes

Number of Students Who Answered No
Number of Students With a Different Response
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Data Analysis

In the study several artifacts were collected from the students. In the first part of the

research, students had to create their own outline on a piece of loose-leaf paper. After students

constructed their own outlines responding to the provided essay prompt they were introduced to

the ‘”Thematic Essay Outline”. They then had to create another outline using this writing

strategy that was introduced to them. In addition, students were asked to answer Self-Reflection

Questions based on the writing strategy of thematic essay outlining that was presented to them.

Figure 1 is an example of one the participants original essay outline that they developed

prior to being introduced to the Thematic Essay Outline that was created to specifically outline

thematic essays in social studies. Students did not have a systematic method to write

information on their paper. Students also took more time while creating their own outline

because they had to consider how they wanted to structure their essay and choose the

historical revolution that they wanted to address in their paper. Students struggled with

brainstorming background information about these different revolutions. As seen in Figure 1

some students used bullet points, asterisks, or just wrote in sentences in order to develop some

type of outline. Besides struggling with how to organize information, students had trouble with

developing an introduction, thesis, and conclusion. They did not even address how they would

begin to develop these sections of their essay in the outlines they created independently.

Additionally, students did not distinguish between the two different revolutions they were

addressing. Instead, they mushed their information together and did not directly show how they

would address the tasks that the prompt asks students to include in their writing.

Figure 3 is an example of a student’s work who used the Thematic Essay Outline. While

using this graphic outline, students were able to distinguish between the two different historical

revolutions that they were writing about in their thematic essay. Each revolution and task had a
GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS & OUTLINES TO DEVELOP WRITING 10

separate box on the outline where students could insert information. Instead of writing large

paragraphs when creating an outline, Chrissan was able to clearly indicate the revolutions she

selected and then was able to fill in the corresponding information in the task sections of the

outline graphic. In figure 1, Chrissan did not have an introduction or a thesis outlined. However,

when working with the Thematic Essay Outline, Chrissan did include a notes for her introduction

paragraph and developed a thesis statement.

Figure four is a graphical and quantitative representation of the self-reflection questions

that students were asked to respond to after being introduced to the Thematic Essay Outline.

The students thought that the writing strategy that was presented to them would be of their use

in the future. Only one out of the four students was not sure if this outline would help them write

thematic essays in the future. This same student did respond yes to the rest of the questions

that were asked. With that being said, this one student who was unsure if he would use this

strategy did admit that he had a better understanding of what a thematic essay was. Despite

this, the majority of the students did note that they would use this writing strategy in the future

and that they gained insight into some of the different themes that may appear on future regents

exams.

Limitations

Although the Thematic Essay Outline introduced in this study was effective, there were

some limitations. The biggest limitation was the time that was spent with students. I was limited

to forty-minute blocks when working with students. If I had a longer block of time students would

have had more time to develop their outlines. Also, I was not able to work with the entire class.

Only specific students were selected by the cooperating teacher for me to work with. Therefore,

the data that was collected was only from a small section of the student population.
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Conclusion

Despite the limitations of the study, the writing strategy of using a graphic organizer

outline to write a thematic essay proved to be successful. The students all indicated on their

self-reflection questions that the Thematic Essay Outline helped them develop their essays and

would be of their use in the future. In addition, students would be able to use this graphic

organizer outlining strategy in the other content areas as well.

In a future study, it would be beneficial to work with a larger pool of students. This would

ensure that students of all different writing abilities would be involved in the study. A possible

solution to deal with the element of time would be to conduct this study after school. Conducting

this study after school would not limit students to just working in a specific time frame. Allowing

students to have more time when completing the Thematic Essay Outline would be beneficial

because the supervisor of the study would be able to make sure students are addressing all

tasks that were included in the essay prompt. Overall, this graphic organizer outline writing

strategy was successful in helping students develop their writing skills.

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References

Meyer, D.J. (1995). The Effects of Graphic Organizers on the Creative Writing of Third Grade
Students. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED380803.pdf.

Shanahan, C. & Shanahan, T. (2014). Teaching History and Literacy. In K.A. Hinchman & H.S.
Sheridan-Thomas (Eds.), Best Practices in Adolescent Literacy Instruction (pp. 234).
New York, NY: The Guildford Press.

Sundeen, T. (2007). So What's the Big Idea? Using Graphic Organizers to Guide Writing for
Secondary Students With Learning and Behavioral Issues. Beyond Behavior,16 (3),
2934. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.www.library.manhattan.edu/stable/24011664.