Hi Emily,
I agree with Marie that the use of nonlinguistic representations can be particularly useful for ELLs, but this strategy is effective for students of all ages and backgrounds. I have taught at multiple grade levels (early elementary, middle school, and college level) and have used nonlinguistic representations with students at each of these levels.
When I taught first grade, the use of nonlinguistic representations provided an avenue for my novice writers to express themselves (drawing pictures, creating model using math manipulatives, etc.) in ways that they could not yet do through writing. This brings to mind some of ReadWriteThink’s student interactives such as the Comic Creator and the CD/DVD Creator (see http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/ to view all RWT interactives).
At the middle level, one of my students’ favorite activities was to participate in creative drama. They acted out vocabulary words, created skits to demonstrate inferencing skills, and even constructed “outlines” using real objects. You can view a lesson plan I created, “Developing Story Structure with Paper Bag Skits” that was based on my use of skits with middle level students on ReadWriteThink (http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/developing-story-structure-with-1024.html). At the university level, my students continue to learn and express themselves using nonlinguistic representations. We use hands-on learning activities, engage in cooperative learning activities (think-pair-share is nearly a daily occurrence), etc.
Here is a reference to a helpful article by Marzano about this strategy:
Marzano, R. J. (2010). Representing knowledge linguistically. Educational Leadership, 67 (8), 84-86.
Nancy
