Organising your thoughts: Making a Word cloud

A word cloud is a simple visualization of data where words are shown in varying sizes depending on how often they appear in your text. The bigger and bolder the word appears, the more often it’s mentioned and the more important it is. A word cloud will help you spot trends and patterns at a glance and give you an overview of the most important elements.

There are a number of free word cloud generators online. You can try out WordArt or WordClouds.com.

Individual: Write down as many words as you can (max 30) of what comes into your mind when you think of schools in the UK.

Pair work: Once your list is complete, sit with a partner and compare your lists. One of you types each list into your word cloud generator, and press ‘visualize’. Write down ALL of the words on each list, even if you have written the same.

You now have a word cloud which you can download to your computer. Play around with the fonts, colours, etc. to design your cloud to suit your taste. The biggest words will be the ones that you both used.