PurposeTo help students analyze connections between words and to explain relationships among words and the topic.
About the Strategy The big idea behind the Concept Circle is that, while informational text is organized around concepts or topics, organizing ideas, and details and facts, it all rests on vocabulary knowledge. Sometimes, well-intentioned teachers get so caught up in teaching vocabulary that students learns many words but fail to connect those words to each other and back to the overarching concept or topic. The Concept Circle helps students make the connection between vocabulary/terms and the topic or concept. |
Template |
Implementation of the Strategy
Activity Steps
- Determine a bank of words that is important to understanding a selected concept or lasting lesson.
- Have students write one of the words into each of the four sections of the Concept Circle.
- Instruct students to describe (orally and in writing) the meaning and relationships between and among the words in the sections of the concept circles.
Measuring Progress
- Teacher observation and anecdotal notes
- Conferring
- Student self-reflection
- Graphic organizer post-reading as assessment
- Tracking of strategy use on intervention plan