Lewis electron dot structures are diagrams that show bonding between atoms, valence electrons, and indicate any charge on a chemical species. Why do you learn to draw Lewis electron dot structures in chemistry class? Drawing the structures helps you to predict how many bonds are formed between atoms in a molecule and reinforces understanding of the
octet rule. However, some atoms have more than eight valence electrons, which would be a lot of dots around an atom. For this reason, you don't see much about Lewis structures outside of the classroom. However, the principles used to diagram molecules, without the dots, are something you can use whenever you need to write a molecular structure.
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Photo: Two Lewis structures of the nitrite ion. (Ben Mills) 
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