Have you ever wondered how to move your students beyond “And then…” stories to understanding the key elements of a good story? Have you found yourself growing weary of the proverbial “bed-to-bed” story that seems to run on and on until you get to THE END?
While crafting a good story may seem complex, it is made easy when applying Picturing Writing’s multiple layers of scaffolding to support even the youngest of writers. Our multimodal “pictures first” approach also captivates students who struggle with written text, including English Learners. Because pictures offer a universal language, this visual-verbal approach has also found a natural home among English Learners and their teachers.
Using Picture Books as Mentor Texts
But before diving into creating pictures, we first turn our attention to quality picture books which become our mentor texts. When we study picture books as a genre, students notice that both image and text play an equal and critical role in telling the story. While each sign system may indeed tell the story in its own way, when you combine the two, students discover that the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. The literary experience becomes far richer.
During our study of quality picture books, we also analyze key literary elements: setting, haracter, problem, solution, and ending. For instance, how does the artist establish a sense of setting at the beginning of the story? How does the author establish a sense of setting through the use of words? What happens when we stare at the setting picture while the text is being read aloud?
These nuanced understandings of the dynamic relationship between image and text are often overlooked when using a traditional monomodal, verbocentric approach to teaching writing.
While studying quality picture books, we might also notice how artists use “changes in perspective” to draw the reader into and through the story. They can also be used—along with color and texture—to build dramatic tension as well as create a sense of relief. These observations can be applied to our storyboards and our own paintings.
Using Storyboards to Develop a Storyline
Storyboards offer students the opportunity to develop their story idea in both pictures and words before they start to write. Our Picturing Writing storyboards are designed to reinforce the discoveries we made about story structure during our study of quality picture books. The storyboard requires that students draft their stories in rough storyboard sketches first, then read their pictures to jot down key words and phrases. Even a simple 4-box storyboard designed for first graders serves to reinforce the key elements of a good story.
The Accordion Folder
The structure of the storyboard, whether it is 3, 4 or 5 pages (or more for older students) is reinforced by use of an accordion folder. The accordion folder embodies the notion that words and pictures should be treated as parallel, complementary, and equal languages for making meaning.
Each panel of the accordion folder is labeled with a key literary element. Students are asked to address the purpose of each particular literary element in pictures first, and then in words. Their understanding of how to address each literary element—in both pictures and in words—is once again supported by review of favorite mentor texts.
Students may notice, for instance, that an artist uses darker, more somber colors to darken the mood on the “problem page” and uses warm colors to create a sense of relief or resolution toward the end of a story. Once we have included these visual elements in our paintings to establish the mood, it is far easier to reinforce that mood in our writing. Not only have we already thought about it, but we have also secured our ideas to the page in our paintings.
Word Banks, Brainstorming Sheets and Word Choice
Within the Picturing Writing process, specially designed brainstorming sheets prompt students to read their crayon resist paintings to address the purpose of each panel of the accordion folder. Students jot down key words and phrases to describe what is happening in their paintings. They learn how to read their paintings to access detail and description.
As teachers model practicing “close reading of visual text,” they build community word banks, panel by panel, to help students address that key literary element in their writing.
Once the class builds a community word bank, word choice becomes a critical part of the writing process. Students are charged with choosing the very best words and phrases to capture what is happening in their paintings. Guided to use strong verbs and sensory description, students are set up to perform what has become known as “the magic trick.” They learn how to make each picture appear to come alive. “Making magic” has become a huge motivator for even the youngest or most reluctant writers. After all, who doesn’t want to try their hand at making their picture come alive?
A Dynamic Duo
You may discover that there is far more to this story than meets the eye as you delve into the dynamic relationship between pictures and words, image and text. Students become connoisseurs of quality picture books, both those professionally published as well as those they create for their classroom library. Their published books become favorite reading materials.
