I chose to use Canva for this infographic. I already use it to make any slides I use in the classroom more engaging (a well-placed GIF here and there can really catch students’ attention). However, I haven’t tried to do too much else with Canva, so I played around with several different templates.

At first I had no idea what to do an infographic on, but then I decided that I could lean more on my teaching side and create one that I usually create by hand to put on my classroom wall. One thing that I hear over and over again from my high school students is how anything affects their grade (even though we talk about it over, and over, and over again). So, I decided to choose a breakdown of my grading categories since it is simplistic.

I really struggled on choosing a template. I played around with several different ones, changing colors and fonts, and I was getting a tad impatient on getting it to look how I wanted it to. After a while, I deleted several other attempts, took a break, and came back to a new template. In the end, I chose to keep the color scheme of the original template, as I am drawn to more calming colors (and I have my classroom set up to be a calming environment, so it fits my classroom vibe). I changed the images to match my information and I changed the font. I ended up using two different versions of the same font to keep things more consistent. I’m still not completely content with how this one turned out, as I think there is still some balance issues to fix, but it is okay enough for a draft.

While for creative projects I like students to use paper, I can see how infographics could be useful in the classroom. For novel formative (and sometimes summative) assessments, I have students create one-pagers that targets specific skills that we are working on. I typically include symbolism, or have students track key scenes, and I think an infographic could be a good digital option for this assignment. I also can see this as a tool for students to track plot or to show changes in characterization throughout a novel. More specifically to my classroom, I could have my students track their progress on their reading goal throughout the semester as an infographic to turn in with their final reflection letter that I have them write. There are definitely so many options for infographics!