How to Make Your Initial Map
A Few "Romantic" Samples
Your Media Options
How to Make Your Initial Map
LIST THE IMPORTANT ITEMS: Suppose, for example, that i want to represent the earth in terms of spheres; my list would include GEOSPHERE, BIOSPHERE, and NOOSPHERE (synonyms: earth/planet, earthkind/life forms, and ideas/words/concepts).
CONNECT THE ITEMS TOGETHER WITH ARROWS: The arrows could go from geosphere to biosphere to noosphere to show the historical development on our planet. However, you might also want arrows going back from noosphere to biosphere to geosphere to indicate the influence of culture upon life forms and the world of inorganic matter.
ARTICULATE THE ARROWS WITH VERB PHRASES: For each arrow you have drawn, try to say exactly what the relationship is. For example, in a time mode, geosphere ----precedes à biosphere. Or, working on a feedback system, biosphere ---- breaks down into à geophere. Obviously, there are many different kinds of relationships you can plot in this concept map.
CONSIDER A PROPER ARRANGEMENT: Now consider the possibilities of laying this out on a page. Pull and tug at each item to see what arrangement will give the best picture of what you want to show. Consider the question of proportion of the concepts, order, hierarchy, or some other intelligible form, perhaps organic. For example, the Gawain-poet places the five virtues of the hero into a pentangle. Ecologists have long considered the spider's orb as a good form for their pursuits.
TRY TO REPRESENT THE ACTUAL DYNAMIC: The world is ever in flux, and especially the world of concepts, so it is important to try to overcome the limitations of your two- or three-dimensional representation of a map to indicate the dynamism of the system. Help your viewers put it into motion, perhaps through a sequence of frames, as in a cartoon.
A Few "Romantic" Samples
Here are a few examples of concept maps, thanks to my Arthurian Romance class from Fall 1998. We started the first class by working on the definition of Arthurian Romance together. This concept map represents our collective first thoughts. The shape of the cross was my addition, because i felt that Christianity was an essential concept of the genre in the Middle Ages and the cross provided a useful, multi-paneled form to represent the relationships. We spent the rest of the term articulating these relationships and evaluating our readings in terms of this map.
For the major papers, students had to write about some feature of their definition of romance and its traditions. To see some of the best concepts maps they produced, click on one of their names:
Andrew Burns, Jennifer Daniel, Natasha Ramnauth, Christy Raettig, and Melissa Spor.
Your Media and Software Options
Pen and paper, crayons, collage, paints etc. (use a scanner in Olin for copy that is ready for the course website or bulletin board)
Microsoft WORD: using Draw and Autoshapes (use printscreen or a scanner for the web)
Microsoft PAINT: (save as HTML for website launching)
INSPIRATION: on Mac's (use printscreen or scan for the web)
VISIO: on PC's (save as HTML for web publication)