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Pictorial or Visual Notes
Sketchbooks should be made accessible to as wide a range of skills as possible, and to some children thinking visually may take the form of notetaking, rather than drawing, such as this sketchbook page from Pensans Primary which explores the design of a sweet (see also Sketchbooks for Design or Thinking).
Through sketchbooks children can be encouraged to think visually, taking their writing to another level. This is not necessarily about illustrating text. Instead sketchbooks can encourage children to switch between text and image/symbol more intuitively and to develop their own personal (but communicable) form of expression.
We have used them for research on Egypt. I let the children loose in the library with the brief to find an aspect of ancient Egypt which really interested them. We got lots of variety with this and children who usually don’t write seemed to suddently want to add lots of notes to their pictures!