About this activity
Eight drawing tasks for a student-led transition meeting: draw where you want to be two years after graduation and label three things in the picture; draw the steps between now and that picture, numbered; draw the people on your team and what each one actually helps with; draw the supports you use now and circle the ones that end at graduation. That last one produces the most useful conversation of any card here.
How to use it in a session
Draw badly and quickly. The picture is a thinking tool, not a product, and a student who is shading is not planning. The circled supports card is the one to spend real time on — most students have never been told which of their accommodations stop at graduation, and finding out is often the moment transition planning becomes real to them. The ideal-work-week card asks for hours, transportation and one thing that is just for the student, and transportation is where most of these plans quietly fail. The last card asks for a one-page version presented aloud, which is the point of the whole board.
What to listen for
Watch whether the steps between now and the picture are concrete. Get a job is not a step; apply to three places by March is. Notice who appears on the team drawing — a student whose team is entirely family and school staff has not yet identified the adults who will be there afterwards, which is worth addressing directly.
Carrying it home
The team drawing is worth showing the family. It usually starts a conversation about who does what after graduation that nobody had scheduled and everybody needed.
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- Ninth through twelfth grade. Transition planning is required under IDEA from age sixteen, and student-led meetings are the goal.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all eight tasks are free to use with no account.
- Why drawing rather than writing?
- Because it lowers the barrier and produces something to talk about. A student who will not write a plan will draw one, and the drawing is a better prompt for speaking than a form is.