Dipping Your Toe Into Sketchnoting

Sketchnoting has given several of my students a new way to express themselves, both as they reflect on lesson materials and create presentations of their learning. This post is an outline of how I get my class started with sketchnoting.

Because we are not in a 1:1 iPad environment in my classroom, students begin their doodles with paper and pencil, and I eventually do digital tutorials for those that are interested in using this method to share their work and thinking. The app we use is Sketches School (the same as in the Everyone Can Create Drawing iBook) and some students have dabbled with Procreate as well. 

There are 5 basic tenets of sketchnoting that I teach below. We move through each individually as students explore how they might use them to effectively communicate thinking.

 

Text

There are orders of magnitude in your text. The size and text style acts to communicate of the level of importance of the written words.

 

Boxes and Containers

These denote significance or categorization and act as a styling tool for your broader sketch note.

 

Lines and arrows

These elements work to separate and divide or join and converge your content, respectively. 

Doodles

You DO NOT have to know “how to draw” to sketch note. Most doodles contain 5 basic components… a dot, a line, a triangle, a square, and/or a circle. As Mike Rohde, the author of The Sketchnote Handbook says about the quality of drawings, it’s about “ideas, not art!”  

Layout

There are 5 general layout styles in which your sketchnote can flow.  

After teaching the sketchnote elements, I’ll generally have students hone their skills and practice with a challenge like this table (given to them empty, of course).

Then, we’ll put it all together with some challenges or assignments like any of these below:     

Challenges

• Sketchnote a typical day in your life
• Draw how you make toast (or insert other task) - great for expository writing
• Term / year / course reflection
• Sketchnote a scientific or biological process
• Sketchnote a historical timeline
• Sketchnote a character map
• Sketchnote the plot of the novel you’re reading

Do you have some other ideas on where you’d use sketchnoting in your classroom? Comment with your ideas below!