Organized Chaos: Mind Mapping

If your child is a creative learner, then you know organization is a struggle for them. As a student I always got the same feedback on my paper; my ideas were good, but my writing was all over the place and lacked structure. Even while writing this blog, I struggle to make sure my writing isn’t going off in five different directions.

During my senior year I learned something that helped me be able to fake organization for papers, mind mapping. Don’t get me wrong, I had used mind mapping before, but it was in very structured worksheets in the fifth grade. The focus of mind mapping is to help get ideas out of a students’ head and onto the page, so it doesn’t need to be extremely organized, just easy for the reader to understand.

The Main Idea: The topic, main idea, or subject should be in the middle of the page and bold enough to draw your eye.

Branches: The branches are used to start your ideas about the topic, don’t worry if they seem like they don’t make sense. The sole purpose of branches is to get ideas out of your head and onto the paper.

Twigs: The twigs are under each branch where you list the details or information that support your branches.

Doodle: Feel free to doodle related to the topic to help the message sink in.

Group: Once you finish writing branches and twigs full of ideas, start grouping branches together. As you begin grouping branches, think of how you need to structure your paper.