Graffiti Mat

A Graffiti Mat is an instructional strategy that we, as a staff, used during our Summarizing & Note-taking Marzano session. This small group strategy requires a large piece of chart paper and markers/crayons.

Directions are simple! Draw a square in the middle of the paper, then divide the rest of the space according the number participants at the table. Each person has their own space to share their knowledge on the subject.

Our assignement was to write all we know about the Summarizing and Note-taking strategy. When everyone is done, they share their knowledge. As a table, a group summary statement is created and place in the center box.

During this strategy, participants accessed their background knowledge and located information from the text by taking notes on the Graffiti Mat. The group then had to work together to write a summary that included all important pieces of information for the center. It involves higher levels of thinking when they are critiquing and judging the information for the summary statement.

Here are a few examples from the professional development day:





A few weeks later, one of our teachers took this strategy and applied it to her classroom. Her language arts class was reading Nothing But the Truth. Each student was responsible for writing their own prediction about Phillip's actions. As a group, they had to create a consensus for the prediction.

Here are examples of a teacher using this strategy in their classroom: