Games and Sketchnoting Unite!

One of my favorite things about my role as a Tech Integration Specialist is bringing new ideas and strategies into classrooms. This week I visited high school AVID classes and taught them one of my favorite note taking strategies, sketchnoting. I discovered this form of visual notetaking about 4 years ago at a conference and immediately knew that this was a strategy that could transform the way that I took notes forever. After spending the summer sketchnoting Youtube videos, podcasts, and book chapters, my prediction had proven true. I was hooked on sketchnoting and I would never look back.

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I love incorporating games into the sketchnoting sessions I facilitate. Some of them are adaptations of ideas I've found over the years and many were inspired by a session facilitated by Sunni Brown at IntegratED in Portland, Oregon I attended 3 years ago and her book The Doodle Revolution.  My session participants, young and old, enjoy them so much I thought I’d share the games with you. I use Pear Deck (love, love, love this digital tool for making your Google slides interactive) to present my sketchnoting sessions. These games can be done within a Pear Deck presentation using the interactive drawing slide or on paper. I’ve done it both ways, and often do a hybrid of both.

FACE IT
​Idea from Doodle Revolution, by Sunni Brown
For this game, students grab a piece of paper and pen and closing eyes, poise the pen over the page. When you say go, they make a haphazard wild mark on their page with at least one change of direction in it. Once the mark is drawn, they open their eyes and make a face from it; eyes, mouth, and nose. This is a great way to get the room relaxed and bring a smile to everyone’s face.

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BIRD ON A LINE
origin unknown
This variation is same as Face It, except instead of making the line into a face, you make it into a bird with eyes, a beak, wings and feet. I came up with the name, but know I found the idea somewhere just can’t for the life of me remember where!

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GRAPHIC JAM
Idea from Doodle Revolution, by Sunni Brown
For this game, students are given 20 seconds to doodle a word that you display on the screen. Often times I will start with more concrete words like coffee and apple and end with more abstract words like idea or brave.
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If using paper: After the 20 seconds are up, have students pass their paper around the table until each person gets their paper back again. If the room is set up in rows, students can either trade with the person sitting next to them or pass their paper back through the row and the last person passes the papers back to the original owner. 

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If using Pear Deck: After the 20 seconds is up, show the responses on the screen scrolling down through each one. Students love this because they are able to see everyone’s creations!

I love this activity because it helps students visualize the images in their head. It also shows that everyone visualizes things differently. There is no right or wrong way to doodle an image. The important part is that it represents something to the person who is doodling it.
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Often times I will choose words for this Graphic Jam that are in the video clip they will be practicing sketchnoting with at the end of the session. By doing this, participants will be able to pull that image more readily when doodling it again.
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In my sessions I explain how to incorporate text, images, and structure into sketchnotes. The following games are a great way for students to practice these components.

​NAME IN LIGHTS
Idea from Doodle Revolution, by Sunni Brown
This game I typically have students play on paper.  I tell them they are going to practice a word they’ve been writing since they began school, their name. After explaining text and some of the possible font variations, they write their name on the paper using whatever font they choose. When done they can color their name and add lights or any other symbols that represent them. I love seeing all the different styles students come up with. They have a lot of fun with this. I usually give them about 3-5 minutes for this, but time can vary.

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5 SHAPE DOODLE
origin unknown
This is another game I discovered over the years, and can't figure out where! For this game, students are given 2 minutes to find something in the room and doodle it using only these 5 shapes: triangle, circle, square, dot, and line. This is a great way to explain that we don’t have to be artists to doodle. If you can draw these 5 basic shapes, you can draw most anything!

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EMOJI THIS
Variation of Sunni Brown’s Stickify This
I came up with this variation based on the game below. I call out an emotion and students draw a face expressing that emotion within 1 minute. I love how this illustrates how much we can convey just with a simple emoji.

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STICKIFY THIS
Idea from Doodle Revolution, by Sunni Brown
This game is much like Emoji This. I call out an action word and the participants have to doodle a stick figure demonstrating that action. As with Emoji This, it is a wonderful way to illustrate how a simple stick figure can convey emotion as well as action.

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SKETCHNOTING PRACTICE
At the end of every sketchnoting session, I have participants practice. I usually select Youtube videos that have steps and are no more than 5-10 minutes in length. Sometimes the videos are connected to the content, sometimes they aren't. It depends on the learners and the class that I'm facilitating the session for. I find that scaffolding their first practice session is really important. When you learn something new all your focus is taken learning that skill, so it's hard to absorb any additional content. By scaffolding the sketchnoting process the first few times, it helps the learner focus on the content being sketchnoted as well as the process of sketchnoting itself. Without the initial scaffolding, I've often found people get frustrated and are less likely to give it a second try thinking it must not be for them.  Click HERE for an example of a video I've used. 

To begin practice, I give students a few minutes to write their title, cite source, and set up the structure. I tell them how many steps are in the video so they can write them on their paper in whatever structure they wish. I also will give a list of words that they may choose to draw during the video so they can start thinking about the image that comes to mind. As mentioned before, I use some of these words when doing the Graphic Jam game so they've already doodled these images once. Once the video starts I pause it for a minute after every step so they have time to complete their notes for that step. I find that by doing this, students feel more relaxed and can process as they go. 

REFLECTION
One of the most important parts of this process that often gets overlooked is reflection. By allowing 5-10 minutes after the video is over for students to finish their sketchnotes gives  time to shade in, add more images and text, and reflect and process what they just took notes on.  This step has been extremely valuable to me as well as my students and others that I've helped teach this process to.

GAME CHANGER!
This past week when I visited classrooms, I had a few students in my session that had been in my session in another class. When they saw me, they said, "Are you teaching sketchnoting again?! That was the best lesson I have had all year! I love sketchnoting...it's helped me so much!"  It made my day to hear this feedback. It truly is a game changer for many students, I know it was for me!

LEARN MORE!
If you are interested in learning more about sketchnoting check out my resource page with additional blogs and templates below. Also, make sure to follow my inspiration for many of these games, Sunni Brown, and check out her book The Doodle Revolution! This book is rich with inspiration, content and lots more doodling games and activities! Also, make sure to follow other sketchnote extraordinaires, Carrie Baughcum, Monica Spillman, Sylvia Duckworth, and Nichole Carter. They are all amazing and have lots of resources, inspiration, and experience to share!

SKETCHNOTING RESOURCES