Having students create infographics allows them to not only develop, practice, and hone these skills, but they are creative ventures for them to produce their ideas in a different form and you'll also get more participation in revision and peer editing activities. These types of products certainly should not replace formal essay writing. However, they can be used to help practice skills related to formal essay writing.
And did I mention revision? It is a critical practice in any profession and should be promoted in the classroom. Because of the visual and graphic design component of the activity, students will take great care to ensure their infographic is ready for their peers to get a gander at it. You can even scaffold the peer editing and revision process by having peers focus on a certain aspect of the assignment - supporting data, argumentation, clear and concise statements, visually appealing - to be returned for constant and continuous revision.
Oh yeah...and because they are a graphic, they can easily be published on the web. Students love to publish all sorts of media on a daily basis. This component will give you an opportunity to focus on Digital Citizenship in your classroom. These graphics are great for student portfolios, social media posts, student created websites...drive them to publish to a global audience and they will put their best foot forward. A large number of students already know what this means....they never post their first selfie.
Below are a couple of templates done in Google Drawing of different infographics that you can push out to your students in order for them to make a copy of and own. Once they have their copy, they can adjust everything on the template they see fit to.
Template I created in Google Drawing
Template in Google Drawing from Ryan O'Donnell out of Rocklin Unified
Google Drawing Templates Here, Here, & Here
Infographic Toolbox - Change and use elements for Infographics
Step-by-step instructions on how to create one in Google Slides
AND, you can empower your students to create beautiful infographics using these services:
Canva
Picktochart
Venngage
Easel.ly
***All linked infographics in the blog post come from the amazing Alex Corbitt, English teacher from New York working in the Bronx. Give him a follow on Twitter
