AP Language: Doodle Notes

In this lesson(s), students will create “Doodle Notes” to showcase their understanding of one of the free response questions on the AP Language exam or of a text studied in class. "Doodle Notes" are a visual note-taking method designed to increase focus and memory. You can find more information here about this note-taking strategy.

Common Core Objectives:

• RI.11-12.7: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different print and non-print formats in order to address a question or solve a problem.
• RI.11-12.8: Evaluate the argument, specific claims and evidence in a text, assessing the validity, reasoning, relevance and sufficiency; analyze false statements and fallacious reasoning.
• C.11-12.5e: Establish and maintain a task appropriate writing style. 
• C.11-12g: Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.
• C.11-12.5: Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
• L.11-12.5: Demonstrate understanding of, figurative language, word relationships and nuances in word meanings. 

Before the Lesson

Before this lesson, students should have covered the concept for which they will use “doodle notes”. This should be a text with which you want students to show their understanding, make sense of concepts, features, or rhetorical moves; or students can create “Doodle Notes” as a way to conceptualize and review one of the free response questions. “Doodle Notes” can be implemented at any point in a unit of study; the directions below are written as if the “Doodle Notes” activity comes at the culmination of a study (either of a free–response question type, such as rhetorical analysis, a classroom text or unit anchor text.)

Materials and Resources: 

• samples of “doodle notes” (found on the link or on the slideshow here)
• notes from class content or reading selection, classroom activities related to subject/topic
• assignment guidelines/checklist to provide students

What to Do:

1. After deciding your purpose for including this “Doodle Notes” activity (i.e., the specific text, free–response questions, etc.), ask students to review the key activities or enduring understandings that have been associated with the unit/text. You can ask students to jot these down on sticky notes and place on a poster paper, use a Jamboard, or simply ask students to share their ideas while others make notes on their own paper. 
2. Explain the rationale for “Doodle Notes” by explaining that the ultimate objective is to show how the enduring understandings, terms, skills, details, etc., are related to one another, ultimately proving the “big idea” or message of a given text. 
   1. For example, for “Doodle Notes” that represent rhetorical analysis free response question, they might start with the task sentence language, highlight the word “rhetorical moves/strategies” in the task, and then list the strategies; students might then draw arrows to connect these moves to audience, an appeal, and so on. With a text, perhaps students will put the message at the bottom of the pyramid with the cultural context or exigence surrounding the pyramid, and build from the message up to specific details that show the identified message (at the point of the pyramid). 
3. Show students examples of completed “doodle notes” that can be found here or by navigating the website here. Ask them to observe and share how the different representations reflect different note–taking purposes. For example, when might a student use cause–effect, compare–contrast, connections/parts, steps or stages, layers or stacks, and so on. 
4. Provide a bulleted list of expectations for students’ to consider when planning their “Doodle Notes”, such as:
   1. a thematic concept relevant to the topic, text, concept, controlling idea, etc. For example, if students are going to create a doodle note showing the concept of rhetorical analysis, they might make this look like a pyramid; a cookbook with “ingredients”, a roadmap, and so on; unifying motif, theme, or concept that reflects the content and skills on the exam or per each question
   2. important notes and information (shorthand to adapt to the design) 
   3. key words and phrases only.
   4. images, symbols, visual markers and cues.
   5. visual connections between concepts, ideas, strategies (such as arrows, Venn diagrams, flow charts, color–coding, and so on).
5. After students have completed their work, encourage students to share their “Doodle Notes” with small groups by posting a picture in a Google slideshow or by hanging them around the room and asking students to engage in a gallery walk observing their peers’ ideas. Students should make note of similarities and differences among the illustrations, common unifying elements or motifs, questions for the creator, and so on. 
   1. As an extension, students can also try and articulate the meaning, purpose, and function of other students’ doodle notes by starting with an analogous relationship: “Student A’s cooking motif is similar to the concept of rhetorical analysis because…”. This strategy can also be used as a peer review before completing and submitting the “Doodle Notes.”