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title: Why Draw?

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# Why Draw?

While some of you might be excited to draw, others of you may be thinking, “I’m not artistic at all, and I didn’t sign up for an art class. I’m here to learn the content of this class. And aren’t art projects for kindergarteners, anyway? This seems like a waste of time.” 

For those of you in the less enthused camp, **here are a few of the reasons why we’re asking you to draw**:

## 1. Drawing helps you learn

When we use the word “drawing,” we’re not talking about what you do in a traditional art class. Our goal is different. In this class, **we will not be drawing things; we will be drawing ideas**. 
	
Drawing requires you to select which pieces of information are worth representing on paper, decide how to represent those facts, and understand the relationships between them. Drawing allows you to see the bigger picture, so to speak. 
	
In other words, as you plan what to draw and how to draw it, you will be cognitively wrestling with the course content on a structural level and on a functional level. You will have to parse how systems physically fit together and how they work. In some ways, drawing actually requires you to be more specific and precise about your thinking than writing does. This is why thinkers and inventors like Darwin and Da Vinci kept sketchbooks. **Drawing allows you to inspect your own thinking**.
	
In fact, you may even find that you thought you understood something until you were asked to draw it. In this way, drawing helps you catch and correct your misunderstandings. **Drawing is a tool for learning**.

## 2. Drawing helps us teach you more effectively 

We cannot see the models that you’re constructing in your head until you externalize those models in some way. When you answer multiple choice questions on a test or write essays, we get some sense of your thinking. When you write essays and research papers, we also get clues about your thinking. 

Yet, **there are certain details that we can only see in your drawings, particularly when it comes to the sciences**. Spatial relationships are much easier to communicate through drawing than through text, for example. Drawings help us pinpoint precisely what you do and do not understand which, in turn, helps us give you more targeted feedback and differentiated instruction. **Drawing is a tool for teaching**.

## 3. Drawing helps you become a more accurate communicator 

Setting aside our goals for your learning in this class, we are also preparing you to become thought leaders and effective communicators. **People who know how to draw their ideas are in a much better position to communicate and disseminate their ideas**. 

After you have graduated, you will go on to make discoveries and have new ideas. Whether you find yourself sketching an idea on a napkin in a conversation with a friend or preparing slides for a TED talk one day, we want you to have as many tools as possible at your disposal in order to share your ideas with the world. **Drawing is a tool for communication**.

## 4. Drawing helps you become a more thoughtful consumer of visual information
**“Visual literacy”** refers to two related skills: the **ability create one’s own visual explanations and the ability to interpret the visual explanations produced by others**. In our increasingly visual world, it is important that you develop both skillsets. 

Even if you are convinced that you will never draw again, the time and effort that you put into creating your own visual explanations will train you to be more discerning as you encounter the visuals of others. **Drawing is a tool for understanding the world**.


