There is only so much you can express through words. There comes a time when ever the most carefully though out explanation is better complimented by a picture than more discussion of the topic. I have found that adding illustration to the classroom instruction has benefited my students in terms of their comprehension of more difficult topics and specific management subjects.

    When breaking up into groups it is helpful to have some direction of the places where the students should be headed. When I worked with literature circles earlier this semester I put this diagram on the board to help students to see the areas of the room that they should be headed into for meeting with their groups. The first few days of literature circles (before doing this) had been chaotic, but with and idea in place up on the board the students made a better transition and continued to make better transitions because they knew where they needed to be.
 

    Likewise, when we came to the topic of theme, students were not understanding the concept with just a verbal explanation. They needed to have an illustration. With help from my my mentor teacher I developed this flowchart which loosely talks about theme and summary. My students were having trouble separating these concepts, but once I drew this up on the board they understood the concepts better. When I asked them to write about theme they actually wrote about theme instead of reverting back to summary which they felt more comfortable doing at the time.
 
 

    The most useful visual I have ever drawn for my students was this example of what to do when taking work from a source and putting it into your paper. Plagiarism, at this level, is a subject which I have found entirely foreign to my students. I could talk about it, and it impressed them, but I had to draw this illustration and talk about the things that they could to to have them begin to understand the way that they should be writing their papers with references.
    All in all I have found that these diagrams and visual demonstrations have been nothing but helpful in the classroom. They give me something to be able to show students to further their particular understanding of a subject. They have also given me something to enhance the quizzes and tests that I give students because often seeing an image that they associate with a concept will help them remember. I highly recommend the use of images in the classroom and I am currently working on developing more images to help my students in my future classroom instruction.