Have you ever heard of Visual Scribing?
If not, you’ve probably seen examples of Visual Scribing in presentations, apps, websites, or even restaurant menus . . . .
Scribing is a great way to capture large amounts of information and present it to your audience visually! Scribing helps us organize that information into cohesive groups – it’s a lot easier on the eyes and the brain, not to mention, pretty fun to look at too!
Let’s check out this video from a professional digital storyteller, Devon, to learn a little more about scribing and see it in action:
Colouring in Complexity (Devon Bunce Story) from Digital Storytellers on Vimeo.
Scribing as a Teaching Tool
Clearly, there are a lot of ways you could incorporate Scribing into your lessons, whether you want to spruce up your presentations, efficiently categorize large amounts of information, or offer students an alternative to traditional written outlines. Oh, and that brings us to our next topic . . . .
Scribing as a Learning Tool
Give students the opportunity to create their own Visual Scribes! Not only is scribing a fun activity that engages students creatively, it forces them to think critically about how they want to present their information, as well as how it all fits together. Let’s try our own Visual Scribing exercise by creating a graphic for some historical figures:
Requirements:
Pick one historical figure: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Joseph Brant, Betsy Ross, Sojourner Truth, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Hermann Melville, Susan B. Anthony, Mark Twain . . . .
- Make your character the focal point of the image. Give them a nice name tag, too.
- Include three quotes – give each quote a doodle or two to go along with it.
- Give your character a background/origin – we want to know where they came from!
- Include any fun facts you learned about them!
- Lastly, write your sources on the back side of the paper
