Age group:
High School

Type of outliner:
Alternative Outliner

How do you use this outlining system?
To do a map, each page stands for a paragraph. In the middle of the page, your child places the main theme of that paragraph with a circle around it. From there, your child brainstorms whatever is in his mind about that paragraph in any form that works for him. This could be bullet points or simple sentences with multi-colored pens. Once your child has inputted everything he has to say about that idea into the box, he needs to underline or circle what is the main topic of the paragraph and put that topic into one sentence (i.e., a topic sentence). He then goes back over the leftover material and identifies three supporting details.

Other important information:
Extreme mapping is a tool that is used mostly in brainstorming, but very rarely as an outlining tool. If your child thinks visually or spatially and learns by looking at how information is connected, this structure is for him.

The above information was written by Jonathan Mooney.