Using Inspiration® to Organize Reading and Writing

Kristin S. Kight University of Delaware February 1998

Thanks to Kristin Kight, a doctoral student at the University of Delaware, for supplying this software review to LD Online.

About seven years ago, a former student of mine and I got together for a visit over the holidays and she showed me a software package that she was sure I'd like. It was an early version of Inspiration® by Inspiration Software® Inc. which allowed the user to make concept maps, or webs on a computer screen and then, with the click of a mouse, turn them into outlines.

Cheryle was convinced I'd like this because I had introduced the use of pencil and paper concept mapping to her class of eleventh grade American History students as a tool to help them see connections between events and the concepts embedded in them. The students in her class, and the others with whom I'd used concept mapping since, found the webs useful but the process of making them cumbersome and frustrating. Cheryle wanted me to see that using the computer made this much easier. She was right!

The program made the connection between assembling content, comprehension of the relationships between ideas and events, and organizing an essay outline to communicate that understanding.  

Some students had real difficulty writing cogent essays at test time, or producing term papers. They'd been taught how to construct an outline earlier in their schooling, but often did not see how to use one in writing tasks. If required to present an outline, they'd write the essay and then the outline. At test time, these students either did not do any planning prior to writing, or they'd sketch out a few ideas but fail to organize them sensibly.

MacArthur's and his colleagues' (1993 ) finding that novice writers in general and learning disabled writers in particular spend little time on planning, take a conversational approach to writing, and do very little editing, suggests that the use of a tool like Inspiration® might be helpful in working with students who have trouble with organizing what they read and write. My experience and the findings of other researchers has also shown that this is the case.

I began to use Inspiration® with two of my more worrisome students and found that they improved rapidly in terms of their willingness to spend time working out connections in the material presented in class and in readings, and in their essay planning. Inspiration® alone was not enough to do this but it made the teaching of both content and writing easier for me and facilitated breaking through a barrier to progress for the students. Since then the program has been revised five times and found its way into a number of uses. Here are summarized some of the research that has been done on its use and an example from my own work using it with students to compensate for organizational learning difficulties.

Lynne Anderson-Inman and her colleagues at the Center for Electronic Studying, University of Oregon, have studied the use of CBCM (Computer-based concept mapping) using the Inspiration® software program (see reference list). They have found that using this program facilitates brainstorming, synthesizing information, organizing it into logical hierarchies and creating outlines from which to develop written compositions. They identify a three- step process for creating a concept map as a prewriting strategy: generate, orchestrate and elaborate.

The generation phase involves brainstorming ideas related to the writing project, including content ideas and any structural requirements of the assignment. Using Inspiration's "Rapid Fire" feature, students type each idea in a "node," or bubble, on the screen. These ideas can be reorganized into a concept map in the next step of the prewriting process.

In the orchestration phase, students arrange the material they have entered into the web into conceptual groups by linking the nodes. Material from reading sources may be added as well. Inspiration® allows the user to click a menu choice which converts the web instantly into outline form, which further encourages logical organization of ideas and source material into a linear plan for the finished written document.

In the third phase, the student elaborates on the information, using either the concept map form or the outline form of Inspiration®. Entries can be put into sentence form and the structure of paragraphs set in place within the outline. The student can "focus in" on any individual level of the outline leaving the others hidden for the moment and work only on the one in view, fine tuning it for logic, completeness ad style. Each level can then be placed back into the whole and the student can continue to edit for clear connection of the ideas subordinate to the main idea or thesis of the document. Finally, the student can copy and paste the entire outline into a word processing program for final editing and production.

In a study of the impact of using CBCM and Inspiration®, Zeitz and Anderson-Inman found that the program was useful in stimulating background knowledge prior to the start of a unit of study and in actively constructing students' understanding of the material presented in the unit. Further, they found that teachers could use the concept maps and outlines generated by the students to assess the level of student comprehension and to correct misconceptions that became apparent as the students entered and linked new concepts as they learned (Zeitz & Anderson-Inman, 1992; Zeitz & Anderson-Inman, 1993).

Anderson-Inman and Zeitz describe the value of using a computer to make concept maps as taking "the eraser dust out of concept mapping" (Anderson-Inman & Zeitz, 1993). One of the impediments to using paper- and- pencil concept mapping is that revisions, which are a central function of concept mapping and take place often as new ideas are added or links are adjusted to convey changes in meaning, are frustrating to carry out in a pencil and paper medium. Using the computer permits students to make changes rapidly and neatly, allowing them to focus on the meaning-making process rather than on mechanics.

An example from my work with an individual student provides a look at the power of this tool for a bright boy with learning difficulties. Ryan was referred to me after being diagnosed with some attentional difficulty and significant organizational problems at his academically challenging private school. His grades were falling despite his obvious intelligence and his high IQ scores. When I met Ryan and asked him to tell me what was going on, he replied that he was "lost in here" pointing to his head. He felt that he was paying attention, that he was doing all he could to meet the demands of his curriculum, but failing just the same. It turned out that his mother, with the best of intentions, was doing his homework for him. She would sit with him as he began and then, under the guise of helping him, she took over and did the work herself, much of it out-loud, as Ryan took dictation. He would take the work to school and his conscientious teachers would try to point out ways that he could improve his work. Ryan would attempt to grasp their advice and relay it to his mother, but the situation was so removed from his control that he spiralled downward in confidence and willingness to try.

As Ryan and I began to work together, I introduced him to Inspiration® and asked him to use it to create notes from his reading. He was to identify the thesis of the chapter and the main ideas being used to support that thesis and to arrange these in a web so that we could see the lines of relationship between the ideas. I asked him to look deeper for the details the author presented as important to each idea. When he was finished, we converted the web to an outline and corrected the linear organization of the material in it. This process allowed me to walk Ryan through principles of writing and to help him build his own comprehension of his assignment. We moved from there to creating new webs and outlines in response to essay questions provided by his teachers. He loved it, and was anxious to show his mother and his teachers what he'd done. They were impressed with his new skills, and he began to teach his mother how to use the program herself. It was the beginning of a redefinition of their relationship which went on to be a healthier one.

Inspiration® alone would not have been enough to resolve all of Ryan's issues, of course, but without it the job would have been much more difficult because the motivating power of the tool in his own hands, and the speed with which he could create a visual and semantic representation of his learning went a long way to energizing Ryan and helping him make better use of his potential.

Since my introduction to Inspiration® in its original form, I have used it with students in classroom situations, in working one-on-one with students who suffer from a number of learning disabilities, and extensively in my own writing and education. My experience agrees with the research findings on the use of this program. I have also found that using Inspiration® is motivating for kids who've lost much of the pleasure of learning. They can visually demonstrate to themselves that they are learning and making progress in transferring what they take into and what they put out in their own writing. This is practical empowerment and more meaningful motivation than any encouragement that comes from an external source.

References

Anderson-Inman, L., & Horney, M. (1997). Computer-based concept mapping: enhancing literacy with tools for visual thinking. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 40(4), 302-306.

Anderson-Inman, L., Horney, M. A., & Knox-Quinn, C. Empowering students with Powerbooks: Computer-based study strategies for students with learning disabilities. , University of Oregon, Eugene, OR.

Anderson-Inman, L., Redekopp, R., & Adams, V. Electronic studying: Using computer-based outlining programs as study tools. , 337-358.

Anderson-Inman, L., & Zeitz, L. (1993). Computer-Based Concept Mapping: Active Studying for active learners. The Computer Teacher.(August/September).

MacArthur, C. A., Graham, S., & Schwartz, S. S. (1993). Integrating word processing and strategy instruction into a process approach to writing. School Psychology Review, 22(4), 671-681.

Zeitz, L., & Anderson-Inman, L. (1992, ). The effects of computer-based formative concept mapping on learning high school science. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.

Zeitz, L., & Anderson-Inman, L. (1993, ). Computer-based concept mapping in a high school biology class: effects of student characteristics. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Atlanta, GA.