Make Learning Stick with 8 Powerful Sense-Making Activities
Reading it once is easy. Making it stick is the hard part.
MINDSETS gives you eight ways to build an activity out of any story your class is already reading — and turn passive readers into active sense-makers.
Eight tools. One word to remember them by.
Each one generates a different activity from the same text. Adapted from Fiorella & Mayer (2016) for English language classrooms.
Mapping
Turn dense text into a visual network. Give students a partial map to finish, never a blank page.
Imaging
Read a chunk. Close your eyes. See the people, the place, the action. Then read on.
Narrating
Talk through the story out loud. What's happening? Why? Does this make sense? Use it on the hard parts.
Drawing
Draw what you read. Tell students exactly what to draw. The goal is thinking, not art.
Summarizing
One sentence per paragraph, in your own words, plus what it reminds you of. Don't copy. Interpret.
Enacting
Act it out. One gesture per character, one object per event. Your body helps you remember.
Teaching
Study the story as if you'll teach it — then teach it to a classmate, a pet, an imaginary student.
Self-Testing
Close the book and answer from memory. It feels harder than rereading. That is why it works.