Activating Visual Memory Systems (Non-Linguistic Representations)
Railroad and Reconstruction Artifacts
Don’t forget that artifacts are a kind of non-linguistic tool. Heidi Hayes Jacobs, in Integrating the Curriculum, (The Video Journal, Vol. 2, No. 
speaks about having an artifact box in the room a few weeks prior to beginning a new unit of study. These artifacts may include anything related to the topic. For a unit on seasons, children might bring in different kind of leaves, a winter scarf, flip flops, seeds, harvest gourds, or seasonal ornaments—all visual symbols that can be associated with seasons of the year. As students sort through the artifact box, connections are being pondered, “What do flip flops have to do with seasons? Oh, yes, you wear flip flops in the summer because the weather is warm.” The artifacts are visual prompts that prime the brain. Although they will not start the unit for two to three weeks, students are already beginning to reflect on the content; thus, priming the brain, which in turn builds readiness for the new information.
As a prompt for visual memory, artifacts are effective for activating prior knowledge and helping students connect the new to the known; they are equally purposeful in creating images that reinforce specific facts and concepts. Teachers in one school system developed a lesson for fourth graders using an old suitcase as a prop that carried artifacts supporting the lesson. The suitcase was a symbol for railroad travel, since the expansion of railroads significantly changed economies after the Civil War.
· An old map: symbolizing travel and moving from one place to the next with references to specific cities and geographic features.
· Fake money: representing people’s need to make money to recover from the devastation of the war and the use of the railroad as a cheap, easy way to distribute goods.
· Postcards: indicating key cities that were connected by railroad.
· Clothing and fabric: reflecting the textile mills that were built up around the state.
· Lumber (wood): symbolizing the furniture factories that used railroads to ship goods.
· Coal: indicating the rise of coal mines and use of coal to fire engines and produce energy.
· Lifestock: showing that farmers raised livestock for more than just family consumption now that railroads could move lifestock more efficiently.
· Tobacco: depicting this huge industry that was revitalized when shipment by rail became possible.
When teachers are asked to create lessons using non-linguistic representations, it is important to understand that these strategies are components of brain-compatible instruction which succeed because of the role of the visual cortex in memory. The presence of this non-verbal memory system in the brain is the reason why learning is enhanced if strategies that incorporate images, pictures, artifacts, and props in appropriate ways become part of powerful lesson design.
