Mind Mapping 101
This page introduces mind mapping as a potential media assignment for students in rhetoric and writing courses and describes strategies for incorporating mind maps into the class curriculum.
Motivation
- Mind mapping helps students with invention by focusing their thinking on the components of their argument.
- Mind mapping allows students to identify and organize the various components of an argument (main ideas, supporting claims, and evidence).
- Mind mapping gives students with a structure by which to brainstorm ideas (for a paper, for their controversy, for a research summary).
- Mind mapping asks students to reflect on what they are going to write before they write it.
- Mind mapping teaches students to move from generating ideas to organizing one’s ideas into a coherent and developed argument.
- Mind mapping provides a way for students to revise their writing by dissecting their paper into its various components.
- Mind maps offer students an easy and useful technological tool for working through their ideas in a variety of contexts.
Preparation
There are several options for creating mind maps. Among the most popular are:
When choosing a mapping program, you may want to keep the following questions in mind:
- Where will your students be making their mind maps? During class? At home? In the Labs?
- How sophisticated do you want their maps to be?
- Where will you be viewing their maps, and will you have access to the necessary software?
Evaluation
It is important to decide how you want to incorporate mind maps into your curriculum, and if you want to grade them. If using the map as part of a class discussion or small group activity, you might decide that you just want students to turn them in at the end of class as a way to show their work. Or, you might have different students or groups present from their mind map in order to share ideas. If you do decide that you want these mind maps to be part of a first or second draft of a writing assignment, you should explain your mapping expectations to your students before the assignment due date. If you do decide to incorporate maps into a writing assignment, you should also be prepared to give students feedback not only on their writing but on their maps as well. What could she or he have done differently? What works well on his or her map? Did her or his paper seem to improve because of the map?
Additional Resources
"Mind Maps for Teaching and Research"
"How to Mind Map: A Beginner’s Guide"
"Mind Maps: A Powerful Approach to Note-Taking"
*Flickr image by Austin Kleon
