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Ink and Ideas: Sketchnotes for Engagement, Comprehension, and Thinking
Ink & Ideas is a lifetime in the making. Tanny McGregor has been thinking with a pen in her hand, putting words and pictures together for as long as she's been reading. Sketchnoting , also known as visual notetaking , helps make your thinking visible, visual, and meaningful. All kinds of people sketchnote, for all kinds of reasons. By introducing sketchnoting in your classroom, you will provide opportunities for your students to engage with and explore their thinking with what they are reading, listening to, or viewing. Ink & Ideas is Tanny's tried and true toolkit to get you and your students started, including templates, tools, suggested reading, ideas, inspiration, and more. She outlines the how and why behind visual notetaking, including research and benefits, providing everything you need to introduce and launch sketchnoting across grade levels and content areas. A different kind of thinking happens with pen in hand. With sketchnoting, the one who holds the pen holds the power. Only the thinker decides what appears on the page, and how. Open up a window into your students' brilliant minds and watch their thinking become visible as they sketchnote their way to deeper understanding and new ideas.
184 pages, Paperback
Published October 30, 2018
2 people are currently reading
113 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 9, 2019
What a fun and refreshing way to look at annotation! Since I first learned about sketch noting a year or so ago, I’ve been playing around with marginalia here and there. I’m looking forward to expanding my practice at some upcoming PD. I can’t wait to share this with students! Thanks to the Indiana State Literacy Association for the free copy!
July 5, 2019
A fantastic read on sketchnoting, a practice that I knew very little about before diving in to Ink & Ideas. This is a professional read that has definitely stretched me, and I know my students and I will be better off for it. Tanny McGregor's passion for the sketchnoting process leaps off the page and will make any reader want to give it a shot.
December 4, 2018
What a fantastic resource! Tanny McGregor's Ink and Ideas provides teachers with so many ideas for engaging K-12 students across the curriculum. One read will not be enough to take in everything McGregor has to offer!
June 18, 2021
I'm a believer in the ideas behind this book. I think this idea of combining images and words can engage learners in different ways and boost cognition.
After reading this, I think I would've liked to have gone through the professional development related to this. There was a chapter that gave some examples of fonts, symbols, and other techniques for making meaning that I thought would be useful. Otherwise, the information included felt a little generic to be able to execute. There was a mixture of sketchnotes from elementary through professional development here that over-illustrated the range of the technique while not really explaining how one gets from students not knowing what it is to those sketchnotes on a consistent basis. When being introduced to a new instructional strategy like this, I want to know how to get from teaching the strategy for strategy's sake to using it to explore content. There was also an emphasis on why but not on how, which I didn't think was too helpful. I would've loved to seen a sample lesson with a sample text for high school explaining in a week how one might introduce and execute this with examples, etc. I know this is a creative endeavor, but I think this could've been a bit more prescriptive, even if these lesson plans were in an appendix. In short, I would've liked to have read more on the instructional strategies to get to the really great learning evidenced in the text.
After reading this, I think I would've liked to have gone through the professional development related to this. There was a chapter that gave some examples of fonts, symbols, and other techniques for making meaning that I thought would be useful. Otherwise, the information included felt a little generic to be able to execute. There was a mixture of sketchnotes from elementary through professional development here that over-illustrated the range of the technique while not really explaining how one gets from students not knowing what it is to those sketchnotes on a consistent basis. When being introduced to a new instructional strategy like this, I want to know how to get from teaching the strategy for strategy's sake to using it to explore content. There was also an emphasis on why but not on how, which I didn't think was too helpful. I would've loved to seen a sample lesson with a sample text for high school explaining in a week how one might introduce and execute this with examples, etc. I know this is a creative endeavor, but I think this could've been a bit more prescriptive, even if these lesson plans were in an appendix. In short, I would've liked to have read more on the instructional strategies to get to the really great learning evidenced in the text.
June 24, 2019
If you need a first book about Sketchnoting—Ink & Ideas should be it! Although written for educators, the information sketched within the covers is awesome for all educators, and for people looking to explore a new way of capturing ideas, expressing themselves, planning, thinking, reflecting, et cetera & et cetera. Author Tanny McGregor shares her sketches, along with sketches from children, teachers, and others. I could go on and on, but I’m off to do some sketchnoting!
August 19, 2019
This way of taking notes is absolutely incredible. I cannot wait to teach it to my students. I know not everyone will latch onto all parts of it, but it will improve their thinking as they read. Sketchnotes are so beautiful and interesting.
July 25, 2021
7/5/2021 ~ Examples and ideas for incorporating sketches, images, and colors into notetaking. Provides a solid rationale for including these ideas in lessons with students.
December 28, 2021
Quite a useful resource that explores the benefits of sketchnoting and includes dozens of examples created by children, youth, and adults.
February 25, 2023
Meh. I had to read it for an after-school book club. Sketchnoting is already overdone at my school, and like all things in education, if everyone starts doing it, then the kids begin to hate it.
September 21, 2023
Didn’t read cover to cover…using as a reference for Sketchnotes
December 16, 2020
The book club at my elementary school decided to read this.
As a text-based person, this stretches my comfort level quite a bit for the classroom. I am not inclined to lead lessons for students that will cause other lessons to go more slowly as students draw their understandings while learning.
Having said that, there are some decent concepts here. I am willing to be open-minded and explore this some more beyond this book.
The book iteself, I felt, was quite thin on materials. There were lots of examples, which was good, but not a whole lot of content for me, a complete novice with sketchnotes.
This feels a bit like current writing curricula: let's push all the sophisticated stuff into elementary grades before students have been exposed to the foundations of learning; in this case, note taking. I feel it's a bit advanced for nine-year olds to use on a regular basis since they haven't yet learned how notes can help them.
****
Interestingly, the COVID-19 pandemic hit before our book group could discuss this book. We picked it up some nine months later as an online club.
A couple thoughts . . . I associate this book with my divorce as I read it two weeks after I was told we would divorce. I read it on my get-away to Cape May. Stimulating fun I had there, eh?
Nine months later, my thoughts were pretty much in line with what they were on the first read. I would read a passage, have a thought, then read my notes and realize it was the same thought from March.
My teacher friends tend to excited for the new and the trendy. I need not be a rain cloud and just let it be. Even so, the "new age" approach to all this keeps postulating, "What if this is helpful?" and then anecdotal evidence of linking text and graphics together is provided as the proof for why this should be done.
I do not dispute that text and graphics can create a strong bond. Hell, I wrote a thesis that said as much. What I keep coming back to, however, is the counter. What if it isn't helpful?
A while back the trend was the multiple ways in which people learn. Have we abandon that? I stipulate sketchnoting could benefit some. I also attest that sketchnoting will be met with resistance from some learners. This would never have worked for me as a learning. I am a text-based learning. I don't draw. Focusing on the drawing would detract from my focus on the reading/listening/whatever. I will become anxious if I had to do this. And if I had to share, I would not have been comfortable at all. Are we forcing something onto students or are we recognizing that there are different modes to learning?
As a text-based person, this stretches my comfort level quite a bit for the classroom. I am not inclined to lead lessons for students that will cause other lessons to go more slowly as students draw their understandings while learning.
Having said that, there are some decent concepts here. I am willing to be open-minded and explore this some more beyond this book.
The book iteself, I felt, was quite thin on materials. There were lots of examples, which was good, but not a whole lot of content for me, a complete novice with sketchnotes.
This feels a bit like current writing curricula: let's push all the sophisticated stuff into elementary grades before students have been exposed to the foundations of learning; in this case, note taking. I feel it's a bit advanced for nine-year olds to use on a regular basis since they haven't yet learned how notes can help them.
****
Interestingly, the COVID-19 pandemic hit before our book group could discuss this book. We picked it up some nine months later as an online club.
A couple thoughts . . . I associate this book with my divorce as I read it two weeks after I was told we would divorce. I read it on my get-away to Cape May. Stimulating fun I had there, eh?
Nine months later, my thoughts were pretty much in line with what they were on the first read. I would read a passage, have a thought, then read my notes and realize it was the same thought from March.
My teacher friends tend to excited for the new and the trendy. I need not be a rain cloud and just let it be. Even so, the "new age" approach to all this keeps postulating, "What if this is helpful?" and then anecdotal evidence of linking text and graphics together is provided as the proof for why this should be done.
I do not dispute that text and graphics can create a strong bond. Hell, I wrote a thesis that said as much. What I keep coming back to, however, is the counter. What if it isn't helpful?
A while back the trend was the multiple ways in which people learn. Have we abandon that? I stipulate sketchnoting could benefit some. I also attest that sketchnoting will be met with resistance from some learners. This would never have worked for me as a learning. I am a text-based learning. I don't draw. Focusing on the drawing would detract from my focus on the reading/listening/whatever. I will become anxious if I had to do this. And if I had to share, I would not have been comfortable at all. Are we forcing something onto students or are we recognizing that there are different modes to learning?
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews