Today we work with the written or spoken word as the primary form of communication. But we also need to understand the importance of graphics, music, and cinema, which are just as powerful and in some ways more deeply intertwined with young people's culture. We live and work in a visually sophisticated world, so we must be sophisticated in using all the forms of communication, not just the written word.

—George Lucas (as cited by J. Daly, 2004)

As the dominant sense, sight serves as the primary tool for orienting the self in the world. Vision is so integral to intellectual development that learning difficulties can sometimes be caused not by brain dysfunction but by problems with the eyes. According to Arnheim (1997), "The visual medium is so enormously superior because it offers structural equivalents to all characteristics of objects, events, relations" (p. 232). If you watch a man trying to lift a box, you can surmise the weight of the box based on your perceptions of the man's stance, the amount of exertion evident in his muscles, the expression on his face, and his relative success.

If the man lifting the box is only a blur in your eyes, then you will not be able to assess the situation with any accuracy. When the sensory building blocks necessary for conceptual development are absent, abstract concepts become difficult, or even impossible. Considering that as many as 75 percent of the activities in a typical classroom rely on interpreting written directions (Richards, 1993), good eyesight is, in many ways, critical to learning.

So, for a student who has problems reading and writing, the first question a teacher should consider is, "How well does this student see?" Dyslexia, once considered a specific kind of cognitive difficulty (seeing letters backward), has come to be viewed as any problem with perceiving and comprehending symbols, particularly letters and words. The emerging definition of dyslexia is that it is a language-based, neurobiological learning disability in which an individual has difficulty with word recognition, spelling, and decoding (Wadlington & Wadlington, 2005). Using this definition, as many as 20 percent of all students can be considered to have some form of dyslexia (National Reading Research Panel, 1999).

A fascinating aspect of the research on dyslexia is the emphasis on using images and other picture-based aids in helping students understand letters and words. One of the most effective techniques for helping dyslexics is the use of strong supplementary visual and multisensory appeals (Abbott & Berninger, 1999; Knight, 1997). Indeed, experts in dyslexia (International Dyslexia Association, 2006) report great success in using picture-based props to aid in the comprehension of text.

Visual props feature just as prominently in the publications of writers who participate in the burgeoning industry devoted to learning styles. Learning styles research finds that most students prefer visual to other stimuli, such as auditory or tactile (Black, 2004; Dunn & Dunn, 1993; Mayer & Massa, 2003; Reiff, 1992). According to learning style advocates, a good rule of thumb for a teacher is "the more visuals … the better" (Silverman, 2002, p. 278).

With a power and complexity that would surpass the fastest, most advanced supercomputer system in the world, visual intelligence takes up almost half of the brain's cortex (Bonner & Burton, 2003; Hoffman, 1998). The region of the brain dedicated to vision is intricately connected to the center of emotions, so it is only natural to respond with laughter or tears after witnessing a particularly moving event, such as a wedding or a funeral.

If a student has experienced an injury to the brain, the visual part of the brain can be resuscitated, but the delicate links to emotions cannot. The condition of having a normally functioning visual center but damaged emotional connective tissue is known as Capgras. Students who have Capgras are able to recognize and recall faces and places, but cannot muster the appropriate emotional response to these perceptions. For example, a patient with Capgras would recognize a parent, but the sight of the parent would fail to arouse an affectionate response. In such cases, a student with Capgras would probably suspect that the parent is an imposter—someone who shares the physical attributes of the mother or father but in reality is someone else.

To understand how vision works in healthy individuals, it is useful to remember the discussion in your old educational psychology textbook about the three different kinds of memory—sensory, short-term, and long-term. Sensory memory is instantaneous, but fleeting; short-term lasts a few minutes; and long-term is permanent.

Most of us have experienced the phenomenon of driving a car while trying to find a location, such as a house where a party is going to be held, from a set of written directions. Even though you read the directions before you opened the car door, and then reread them once you started down the road, when you arrive at a stop sign, you cannot recall what the instructions said about which way to turn. Frustrated, you read the directions a third time, but by the time you reach the next stop sign, you discover that you have forgotten them yet again.

Perhaps it will make you feel better to know that when you cannot remember directions, your brain is functioning completely normally. The brain maintains a copy of the text—the sensory input—for only about one second after you stop reading. If the text makes it to short-term memory, then it could be remembered for a longer period of time—perhaps three or four minutes. However, your brain realizes that directions are ephemeral and that you may not need them ever again.

Much more sensory information is received than is transmitted to short-term memory. Relatively little from short-term memory actually makes it into long-term memory, where information is remembered indefinitely. If the directions you are following take you to the location where you will pick up a paycheck every week, then your brain stores such information in long-term memory and will not let you forget it.

Another notable aspect about the visual system is its amazing adaptability. In one study, scientists asked participants to wear goggles that mimicked the view of a wide-angle keyhole. For a few days, goggle-wearing participants stumbled into furniture, walked into walls, and experienced severe disequilibrium to the point of nausea. Because vision is also integrated with all other sensory systems, including the auditory system, participants had grave difficulties locating the sources of sounds while wearing the goggles (Richards, 1993).

However, after two or three days of goggle vision, nausea subsided, participants stopped walking into walls, and they were able to again accurately locate the sources of sounds. In other words, the brain managed to adapt its auditory system to the new sensory data generated by the eyes in only a matter of days (Zwiers, Van Opstal, & Paige, 2003).

Importance of Visualization

Even scholars who specialize in the study of composition have begun acknowledging the ways that visuals and layout can contribute to the effectiveness of a piece of writing. Odell (1981), who once advocated for diversity of audience, purpose, time, and effort with regard to writing instruction, has lately amended his advice to include visual appeal. Composition is not just "words, and it's not just words that we use to formulate or convey ideas. Successful communication depends on the look of a piece, the very appearance of the piece on the page. The inclusion of pictures, graphs, charts, or helpful inset boxes highlight key pieces of information that are important for the reader to see in the text" (Odell, 2006).

When given directions to assemble a bookshelf or a bicycle, most of us prefer to work from both words and illustrations rather than from only words. Given the choice between putting together a bicycle through instructions in either text or illustrations, most of us perform better with the illustrations (Prevention, 2006).

Many students, particularly those on the autism or Asperger's spectrum, have difficulty using words to think. Instead of words, many think in pictures or scenarios. For these students, seeing models and getting their hands on the phenomenon itself are essential to understanding. For students who are associative thinkers, the need to visualize is especially acute (Grandin, 2006b). Temple Grandin (2006a), who is an expert in handling livestock and is autistic, emphasizes that visuals help her build connections. "To form concepts, I place pictures of different images into categories and subcategories within categories. The more facts and experiences I can download into my memory, the better I can think; there is more information for my internal search engine to find" (p. 232).

The rule-first approach can decontextualize learning and create feelings of detachment and confusion. Rather than provide the rule and have students apply the rule to a set of exercises, another way to teach is to provide a series of examples, then ask students to figure out the rule from the evidence.

Sometimes, when teaching grammar or parts of speech, a common instructional approach is to emphasize the rule, then assign exercises expressly designed to demonstrate the rule in action. Yet more than 80 years of research (Hillocks, 1999) confirms that participation in such grammar assignments does not improve students' writing. Recently, when I asked a high school student who was completing a grammar worksheet what he was doing, he said, "Working on the assembly line." When I asked him what product he was creating, he said, "I have no idea."

The same kind of logic—applying a rule without sufficient understanding of the concept—is commonly found in the teaching of mathematics. Too often, teachers focus on computation and repetition at the expense of revealing when, where, or why a student might choose to apply such equations in real life. Visual stimuli can help provide a vital connection between computation and conception.

On the other hand, the inability to visualize impedes learning and impairs creative thinking. It is not easy to think accurately about places, people, and cultures that you have never seen. To be effective, visuals should relate to the concept to be learned and help reiterate crucial ideas. Visualization can help a student with spelling, factual recall, mathematics, and spatial relations (Williams, 1983). The work of scientists, engineers, and security analysts increasingly requires sophisticated visualization strategies (Greiper & Sauter, 2005). Many studies over the past few years (Frankel, 2005; McGrath & Brown, 2005; Trindade, Fiolhais, & Almeida, 2002) substantiate the effectiveness of communicating abstract concepts through visual models.

In general, human beings find it difficult to remember information only by hearing it. Brown (1958) found that participants could not remember sounds for more than a few seconds after hearing them. Similarly, Baddeley (2004) found that students had great difficulty learning when they were forced to rely solely on acoustic memory. Lewalter (2003) found that using illustrations significantly enhanced comprehension and problem solving when measured against text-only information on a computer screen. As a rule, the more abstract the concept to be learned, the higher the need for suitable illustrations (Arnheim, 1997).

In numerous experiments with students who had difficulties with reading, visual cues were shown to be quite effective. Typically in those experiments, one group of students read a story and had illustrations to refer to as they read. Another group read without pictorial representations. Not surprisingly, students who were given illustrations scored substantially higher in subsequent tests of recall and comprehension. Even when no pictorial representations were given and students were only prompted to visualize the text, recall and comprehension were significantly enhanced (Hutton & Lescohier, 1983; Leavin, 1973; Pressley, 1979). In a study of the creative processes of Nobel Prize winners, many luminaries credited their ability to visualize as the single most important key to their success (West, 1997).

To aid with visualization strategies, computer simulation technologies have been created in many areas of endeavor, particularly in science and mathematics. After experimenting with virtual examinations of phases of matter (physics and chemistry), a science teacher noted, "A photo or movie may show students the internal geometry of ice, but only virtual reality allows them to enter inside and observe it from any viewpoint" (Trindade, Fiolhais, & Almeida, 2002, p. 486).

Film

A wealth of research has substantiated that students prefer watching film to reading books (Baines, 2008a; Cennamo, 1993; Krendl, 1986; Sherry, 2004), largely because they consider viewing to be a much easier task than reading. Certainly, film does more than text to help students visualize. In fact, sometimes the moving image overwhelms the text. For example, most students who read an excerpt from Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes and are later shown clips from the film have all memory of the text obliterated by the pyrotechnics of the film (Baines, 2008a). Similarly a student may read eloquent descriptions of an atomic bomb blast, but until the devastation is seen firsthand (via the images in a film), the power of the bomb is only theoretical.

Film has been shown effective in teaching a spectrum of academic courses, including mathematics, science, foreign language, social studies, and English (Baines, 2008b). Many physical educators use film to demonstrate proper form in athletics—for example, how to properly kick a soccer ball or perform a set shot in volleyball. Film has even been used in public schools to teach social etiquette, address racial tension, warn against sexually transmitted diseases, demonstrate emergency procedures, and inform about an inexhaustible list of other topics (Baines, 2008b).

Although film can be an effective teaching tool, it can be terribly abused as well. For example, a local high school teacher of Spanish in my area decided to show her classes the three-hour-plus U.S. film El Cid, about the Spanish hero Rodrigo Diaz who lived in the 11th century. The teacher dedicated five class periods—an entire week—to showing the film, but she did not stop once to ask a question, comment on the authenticity of the production, or ask students to translate the English into Spanish. Obviously, watching an old film, shot in Italy and the United States, starring actor Charlton Heston, has questionable relevance to the language or culture of Spain.

Because students are so inundated with images via the Internet, television, video games, and other contemporary entertainment appliances, films should be used for specific purposes in relatively modest time frames (usually less than 25 minutes). Nevertheless, the proliferation and availability of film provide a rich set of potential resources. Teachers who plan to have their classes study Romeo and Juliet, for example, have at their disposal more than 100 film adaptations. After students read the play, the teacher could compile 30-second excerpts from 40 different balcony scenes and show them back to back in only 20 minutes. Through such a tactic, students would gain an unprecedented sense of the characters, dialogue, staging, and possibilities for bringing Shakespeare to life.

Film also provides rich possibilities for poetry and composition. An interesting assignment is to have students adapt a poem or piece of writing into a screenplay, then have them shoot it. Once the students have made a film, they can go back and revise their writing to align with the images and sounds of the film. Inevitably, the exercise of moving from words to image and back to words enhances the quality of student writing by invigorating it with precision and detail (Baines & Kunkel, 2003).

Film can help connect the dots with social studies and science, as well. A comparison of visual accounts of the Iraq War—documentary and Hollywood films; photos from Middle East newspapers and U.S. military sources; television reports from Fox and Al Jazeera—could give students a deep, new understanding of that conflict. Similarly, rather than have students create a poisonous gas in class, a teacher of science might prefer to show a film clip of the chemical cloud that results when bleach and ammonia are mixed together.

Art

A teacher does not need a camera, projector, or even a screen to make learning more effective through visual stimuli. She can use the power of visual media by having students draw in response to reading a text. The quality of a student's drawing does not matter as much as the meaning behind it. The practice of turning abstract text into constructed images helps clarify meaning and aids the teacher in identifying the point at which misunderstanding might occur.

Ekphrasis, writing (usually poetic) in response to visual art, also holds rich possibilities. Mike Angelotti, who contributed Sight Lesson 3 in this chapter, suggests that the best way to begin a writing assignment is to have students make spontaneous works of art through quick drawing. Once the art has been created, words can be used to describe, analyze, and inform. King (1993, 2008) has had great success involving students in finger painting in response to a poem or story. After students read a text, they finger paint for two or three minutes, then explain their impromptu paintings. In explaining their paintings, students reveal the extent to which they comprehended the text.

Using paintings and photographs as accompaniments to texts is an innovative way to offer students multiple perspectives. The Web site Shakespeare Illustrated (http://shakespeare.emory.edu/illustrated_index.cfm), maintained by faculty from the English Department at Emory University, lists a bevy of works of art associated with the plays of Shakespeare. A Google image search on Ophelia yielded 53,700 hits. Of course, some hits were photos of pets named Ophelia, but most were photos of actresses playing Ophelia or artists' renderings of the character.

With regard to history, the archive of images on the Internet is boundless. For example, the University of South Florida's A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust (http://fcit.usf.edu/Holocaust/) and the University of Virginia's massive collection of primary source documents from the Civil War called The Valley of the Shadow (http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/) provide free access to thousands of images and primary artifacts. Visual prompts in math, science, music, and other subject areas can be found by using Internet image search engines, such as Google Image Search or Altavista Image Search. The Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/index.php) offers free access to items such as images, films, and audio.

If you doubt the power of images to ignite the mental processes, try these scenarios with two of your classes:

1. In one class, ask students to write a narrative of at least a page in length on any topic that they wish.
2. In the second class, lay out copies of paintings (postcard books are a handy resource for this activity). Have each student select a painting that he or she finds interesting or intriguing. Ask students to write a one-page story based on the work they selected.

In the free write class, students will complain that they cannot think of anything to write. Their writing may turn out to be vague, inconsistent, and flaccid. Using the second strategy, students may complain that they cannot limit their stories to a single page. Inevitably, the writing based on the painting will include details from the painting combined with ideas from students' newly fired imaginations.

Implications for Teachers

About learning through sight, it is important to remember two points:

1. Most students prefer visual learning to auditory, abstract, or kinesthetic learning.
2. Student learning is often more accurate and enduring when visual cues are used.

Unquestionably, visual media have become easier to access and create. A teacher who has an Internet connection and a decent color printer should be able to create stunning visuals with little effort and at minimal expense. Adding relevant visual stimuli to a lesson helps students learn more effectively, especially those students who have difficulties comprehending abstract concepts or reading text.

Perhaps the easiest way to enhance the impact of a lesson is to supplement it with multiple visual aids. I remember when I was in 2nd grade and my teacher, Miss Rush, created a wall-size display of the planets. As I recall, the display was on the front wall as we walked into class one Monday morning. During the week, I remember walking up to the display, touching the planets, reading their names, and noticing differences in size and distance from the sun. On Friday, Miss Rush led the class in a brief discussion of the planets and the display. The class spent only a few minutes on discussion because everyone had already learned the names, sequence, and relative size of the planets over the course of the week. I can still visualize Miss Rush's display of the planets in my mind, though I last saw it more than 40 years ago.

Having students create drawings depicting the meaning of unfamiliar words operates using the same principle—the uncanny propensity of visual stimuli to move learning from short-term to long-term memory. Students may forget a definition, but typically will not forget a drawing or an image associated with a definition. The research on the benefits of visual stimuli is persuasive and convincing. A teacher who ignores visual aids does so at the detriment of students' intellectual development.

The following activities use art, film, photographs, and other visual stimuli to hone students' literacy and thinking skills.

Comic Book Adaptations asks students to interpret and reformulate text so that it fits into a storyboard format. Not only do the Comic Book Adaptations activities help students with comprehension, they also help with inference, voice, and tone. Imagine This! has students analyze the techniques of imagist poets, then model aspects of imagist style in their own writing. Paint-Write engages students in spontaneous painting—with fingers, a brush, or even tree branches—in an attempt to graft their thoughts immediately into words. Reading Art uses compelling and controversial art as a springboard for writing. Learning how paintings communicate with nuance and subtlety can help students understand how to inject these traits into their written and oral communication.

Sight Lesson 1

Comic Book Adaptations

Summary: After reading a poem or article, students write a short comic strip detailing the contents of the text.

Senses: Sight and sound

Type of Activity: Individual or pairs

Approximate Time: One day

Objectives: Students translate their knowledge of a poem or story into images to demonstrate and justify their interpretation of a text.

Materials: Pen and paper

Procedures

1. Students read a poem, article, or story (short story or novel). Then students translate the poem, article, or story into a series of at least six storyboards.
2. Students write dialogue and use description from the text or their own words.
3. Students exchange comic book adaptations with at least five other students, comparing their interpretations with those of others (see student sample in Figure 3.1).
4. Points of difference in interpretations are likely and may spark intensive discussion and analysis.
5. The teacher posts the adaptations together on the bulletin board or a wall.

Figure 3.1. Sample Student Comic Strip

Extension Activities

A teacher might want to assign an essay in which the student compares his comic book adaptation with those of others. The point of the essay would be, "Which adaptation most accurately portrays the story and why?"

Assessment

Sight Lesson 2

Imagine This!

Summary: Students learn about the imagist style of poetry and apply imagist techniques in their own writing.

Imagists believed that poetry can be made purer by concentration on the precise, clear, unqualified image. Imagery alone, the imagists believed, could carry a poem's emotion and message. It could do this almost instantly, without all the elaborate metrics and stanza patterns that were part of poetry's traditional mode.

—John Malcolm Brinnin, "Symbolism, Imagism, and Beyond," in Elements of Literature: Fifth Course

Author: David James Poissant, University of Cincinnati

Senses: Sight (visualization), sound

Type of Activity: Begins with a group reading and analysis of poetry and ends with the creation of individual poems.

Approximate Time: Two to three class periods

Objectives: Students will become familiar with the imagist style of poetry. Students will use imagery and free verse to write their own poems modeled after those of the imagists.

Materials: Obtain enough copies of Ezra Pound's essay "A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste" for the entire class and provide several examples of imagist poetry; pen and paper; and photographs, magazine clippings, or works of art that present unique images.

Procedures

Day 1

1. Read a few imagist poems to the class. Suggested authors include Ezra Pound, Hilda Doolittle, Amy Lowell, William Carlos Williams, and Wallace Stevens.
2. Compare and contrast the styles of the authors.
3. Have students brainstorm a list of writing techniques that make imagist poetry different from traditional verse.
4. Read Pound's essay "A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste" and compare the students' assessment of the form with Pound's "rules."

Days 2 to 3

1. Present students with photographs or pictures cut from periodicals, or have students bring images from home.
2. Students must use imagery and simple language to write a paragraph describing their picture.
3. Students search the paragraphs for their best descriptions and phrases and use these to compose their own poems of five to ten lines.
4. Students meet in collaborative pairs and proofread one another's poems, checking to see that each poem meets the characteristics of the prior day's list and avoids breaking any of Pound's cardinal rules.
5. Students may then revise as necessary in class or for homework. Multiple drafts should be encouraged.
6. To complete the lesson, students present their poems, accompanied by the visual aids that inspired the poems, to the class.

The teacher is encouraged to compose a poem of his own to share as a model for the students. Sample poems by student authors are also helpful. The following poems are student examples:

A Sign in Jackson
Driving through Jackson
I saw a sign
glorifying the old,
a testament to time.
The faded letters
spoke of history,
showing the greatness
of a place that most call
nowhere.

The Pink Flower
Among others
this one stood out,
the only pink
against a background of yellow and green.
I wanted it,
but how could I
pick the only one?
It would no longer stand out
but simply be a pink flower.
Better to leave it
the only pink flower.

A Mother's Mother
Eyes sunken, by time,
deep into the surrounding landscape
of her face.Skin, pale and yellowed
like lace curtains never washed
for fear they will come apart.Fingers, bony and crooked,
their skin loose and wrinkled.Hair like a painstakingly curled
helmet of spider's silk,
a mass that seems to float atop her head
rather than rest there.

Assessment Checklist

_____ Identify two stylistic similarities among writers

_____ Identify two stylistic differences among writers (can be different writers than previous two)

_____ List rules for imagistic verse (you make them up based on the readings)

_____ Complete written description of image

Assessment

Commentary

The Imagine This! activity helps students, through a hands-on approach, understand and appreciate an important movement in early 20th century American literature. It helps dispel students' stereotypes of poetry as confusing, symbolic, or rhyming, and serves as a gateway to preparing students for contemporary American poetry, which is even less rule oriented. Students should also gain an understanding of imagery and free verse as they learn to compose poems in a new way.

NCTE/IRA Standards: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12

Sight Lesson 3

Paint-Write

Summary: Students spontaneously create paintings, and then they write in response to what they painted.

Author: Mike Angelotti, University of Oklahoma

Senses: Sight, touch, movement, sound

Type of Activity: Individual or group

Approximate Time: Variable, from 10 minutes to several days

Objectives: Get students to write expressively about art. You can adapt the Paint-Write toward a variety of ends—response to literature; descriptive, expressive, or persuasive writing; tapping into creativity.

Materials: Tempera paint (washable kids' paint) with 10 or so colors in separate containers, watercolor brushes, watercolor paper, paper plates to use as palettes, plastic cups or glass jars for water, roll of plastic to cover desktops, masking tape, and scissors. Have students each supply a notebook (individual choice fosters ownership of and commitment to the activity) specifically for sketches and various kinds of compositions—a visual-verbal artist notebook.

Setup: Have all materials easily accessible for students.

Rationale

The first paint-write class is crucial to student acceptance of the process. In general, students need to splash paint on paper and write about it; that is, free paint and free write in an experimental, nonevaluative, nonacademic atmosphere. We have found that most students (and English teachers) have not played with paints since early elementary school and believe that they are without artistic talent, basically because they cannot paint an object to look precisely like that object, and have been told so in no uncertain terms. Consequently, they come to painting with some apprehension.

The focus on process, rather than product, and removal of judgment by peers and teacher, along with demonstration to self through practice, tends to relieve that tension, and replace it with genuine enthusiasm, dedication to personal growth, and productivity. The analogy to personal writing histories is painfully obvious—red ink marginalia and regimented grammar drills, for many, liken the act of writing to placing one's hand on a hot stove. Avoidance results; hence, free painting and free writing are helpful opening activities. Small-group to whole-group show-and-tell sessions tend to help students validate their work and appreciate the work of others. The goal is to connect free painting and free writing, to tap the creative energy common to both, and in the interactions between, develop abilities in both.

Once the flow is established, movement toward more formal writing—often teased out of the free writes, reads, and reflections—typically follows. Students begin to believe that they can become more accomplished writers. With hope and belief come engagement and motivation.

Procedures

1. Students enter the room and immediately begin working and playing, engaging with the paint, which is similar to doodling. They may keep the brush moving during class procedures as long as they are continuously in tune with the class and ready to participate appropriately. Such individually driven multitasking can promote skill development and focus.
2. Using brushes, paint, and water, students intensely fill various sizes of watercolor paper with brightly colored painting. Some students work independently, and others labor collaboratively.
3. Students study some of the completed paintings, free writing reflective pieces or writing poems in response to their own work or that of others, preparing for a paint-write show-and-tell session. Low-key talk relates to ongoing processes, staying on task.
4. The teacher paints, walks among the students, occasionally dipping her paintbrush into student palettes for fresh paint to put on her own paper, stopping to observe from time to time, responding to queries or to what she sees. The teacher casually reminds the visual-verbal artists that process, not product, is uppermost—the goal is to paint nothing, to get out of the way of brush and pen, or to allow creativity to happen. She calls attention to the time remaining until the next event.
5. The next event could be a read, a quick paint, a quick write, a choice piece, a recomposing session—whatever is on the agenda. Student and teacher choices link to student and teacher goals of the moment, and may run from generating word volume through free writes to developing pathways to writing sophisticated, response-to-literature essays and multigenre research papers.

Commentary

In its earliest, most restricted sense, ekphrasis referred to the verbal description of a visual representation, often of an imagined object such as the shield of Achilles in the Iliad. With its principle of ut pictura poesis (poetry as a speaking picture and painting as mute poetry), Horace's Ars Poetica expressed the ekphrasitic ideal of giving voice to painting. From Ben Jonson to the Romantics, many poets, most famously John Keats with his urn and Percy Bysshe Shelley with his fallen statue, have allowed art to inspire thought. Rainer Maria Rilke, the Surrealists, and William Carlos Williams continued the tradition in the 20th century (Blackhawk, 2002).

Any student who tries ekphrasis (writing that takes its inspiration from visual art) becomes a participant in the kind of dialogue that has engaged writers and artists for centuries. Listening to works of art and participating in a conversation with them can produce exciting and shifting responses in each of us: poems, stories, self-portraits, essays, and other creative works are generated that "talk back" to the visual stimulus (Foster & Prevallet, 2002, p. xv).

Now when we view Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring as a prompt for Chevalier's novel of the same name and its cinematic adaptation, we know that is ekphrasis. At the least, we have a name and a deeper conceptualization for what English teachers (and others) have been encouraging, in a general sense, for decades—using visual art as a prompt for writing. Having this enhanced perception of what we do at a more conscious level suggests that we can better manipulate the visual-verbal transactions to the mutual advantage of our students as learners and ourselves as teachers.

The difference in the paint-write approach expressed here is that it describes a set of teaching strategies that substantially depend on student development emanating from their individual and collaborative interpretations of and reflections on art of their own making. Students apply paint to paper in a stream of consciousness fashion similar to that employed in free writing, not attempting to paint "something"; hence, the direction, "paint nothing." The resulting paints (see Color Plate 1.1 on p. 183, for example) often resemble abstract art more than anything else, not unlike that of Jackson Pollock.

Judgment is removed from the process, and along with it, anxiety. "Good" and "bad" paintings do not exist. Students then use their own paintings or those of classmates as prompts for free writing, followed by reflective writing on the paint-write just completed. Many combinations of the process are possible: solo, partner, collaborative, small-group, whole-class paints; paint-write, paint-paint, write-paint, write-write; recomposing free writes to more literary writes. Quick paints (1–3 minutes) to fill a page with paint encourage spontaneous painting and discourage judgments and planned painting. Longer duration paints, most effectively introduced later on, encourage reflection and contemplation, more deliberate painting, and contemplative writing. Once students are into it, paint-write innovations emerge from them nonstop. Frequent small- and whole-group show-and-tell sessions allow students to share their own work. Viewing and hearing the work of others can help students validate themselves as writers and painters in this learning community and provide opportunities for meaningful discourse.

The continuing practice of making visual and verbal art addresses meaningful engagement and growth in writing by reluctant and less able learners, as well as those more motivated and advanced. In particular, the process of free painting and then free writing encourages sheer volume of words and a sense of accomplishment by filling a page with self-generated writing. It also features opportunities for student and teacher self-appreciation as visual-verbal artists and learners. It can emphasize collaborative learning, oral language practice, understanding conventions of literary and visual art, portfolio assessment, and other possibilities limited only by the imagination of teacher and student. In brief, paint-write calls on cognitive and emotional play to engage and frame cognitive and emotional growth at the point of individual development. It is at once overtly fun and deeply effective as a set of learning tools.

Color Plate 1.2 on p. 184 is an example of a paint-write combination invented by students—a set of small-group collaborative quick paints and a following quick write collaborative poem. Using a scanner to merge the paints and write, this paint-write was duplicated on a color copy machine for each member of the class and included in the class anthology.

Color Plate 1.3 on p. 185 was one of several student responses to a handout depicting selected Chinese alphabetic characters. The student free painted the image in Color Plate 1.3 from the Chinese character on the chart symbolizing "tranquility," free writing the poem during and in response to the process of free painting.

Color Plate 1.4 on p. 186 is a spontaneous painting I created during a workshop a few years ago. I wrote the poem "And the Teacher Said, 'Paint Nothing'" in response.

Choice in personal writes and paints adds to student ownership and commitment to the whole enterprise, and therefore, to engagement and learning. Expanding the basic paint-write model to include other visual tools, such as cameras and computers, involves extra expense. However, many students already have these tools at their disposal. Beginning with the paint-write seems to work best, likely because of the simplicity and ease of spontaneous, nonjudgmental play associated with the vivid tempera paints—essentially, the familiarity of tools, flexibility and sense of paint-write combinations, and the feeling of accomplishment in painting and writing in just a few class sessions. When the increments of personally meaningful learning are obvious to students, they seem to be more motivated to engage in the activity that gets them there.

At the center is student growth in a democratic classroom that allows students to grow individually in aesthetic forms of choice while also meeting school requirements. In the end, students are more confident as writers, more able, and more willing to write at a moment's notice. They are more in touch with play, free painting, and free writing as learning tools of choice and as effective gateways to more formal written forms. Some students (and teachers) even discover an artistry within that they can grow to a satisfying level of visual and verbal accomplishment.

Assessment

Using a portfolio approach to assessment allows students to choose a minimum number of the various paint-write combinations assigned to represent their efforts over a particular grading period. Students also can be responsible for a daily reflective log and a reflective commentary on the effects of the whole experience. Paints and writes should decorate the room on a regular basis, and students can choose two or three pieces or combinations to include in a class anthology. Outcomes may be designed to engage students in personal writing, create word volume, enhance fluency, and help students move from visual-verbal free play to more formal pieces in realistic stages that advance voice and skill in pressing thought to paper in meaningful ways.

NCTE/IRA Standards: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12

Sight Lesson 4

Reading Art (Developing Reading Comprehension Through Art)

Summary: Given the framework of an art critic, students learn to use paintings as springboards for writing and reading.

Author: Debra Winston, Carbondale, Colorado

Senses: Sight, sound, movement

Type of Activity: Individual

Approximate Time: Variable

Objectives: Students learn to appreciate, analyze, and interpret art. Students learn to write expressively about art and to apply fundamentals of art criticism to reading and writing.

Materials: Large art masterworks, tag board, permanent markers, paper and pens, and adhesive that peels off walls.

Procedures

1. Introduce the lesson by telling students they will be learning to study pictures the way some people read books. Then focus on a particular piece of art and model the process for students, asking questions about the images; imagining smells, sounds, and tastes; and interpreting what the author is trying to say. Have the students join in the think-aloud as it progresses and keep a running list of responses on the board. Review the responses, and discuss the synthesis of meaning they represent.
2. Place students in small groups and challenge them to use the same process with a different piece of art. Prepare Figure 3.2 as a handout, with the back side blank, and have students record their thoughts on the form.
3. Ask students to think about what connections they find with the piece, what they think about the artist's decisions and intended meaning, what questions the work brings up for them, what they see as the focal point, which of their senses are activated by the work, and what they interpret overall about the piece.
4. Have some groups "read" their piece of art to the class.
5. Ask students to circle the most powerful words on their own papers. Encourage them to share their choices selectively with their small groups. Circulate and help students find the power words—the words that really connect to the painting.
6. In small-group discussions, have students decide which words belong together: Which words should be the first in telling us about the picture? Which words helped them understand the picture? Encourage them to end with a series of words to sum it all up: What is the poem all about? Ask them to use the back of the handout to combine each others' power words to create poetry that reveals what they think about the picture.
7. Walk from group to group, passing out tag board for students to write the powerful words into a poetic form, using a permanent marker. Give each group four dabs of the removable adhesive, so they can post their boards on the walls to create an art gallery. Place the corresponding picture next to each poem. Then have students walk around the room reading and viewing their gallery of ekphrastic poetry and the pictures that inspired them.
8. After they return to their seats, ask them if any group would like to read their poems aloud. If no one wants to read, the teacher can read them. Inevitably, students' reactions are tinged with amazement—"We did that?" They also tend to show perceptiveness when asked what makes a painting good.

Figure 3.2. Reading Art Worksheet

Commentary

The following description provides an example of how I carried out this type of lesson as a visitor working with the classroom teacher at one school.

I greet a class of students at Toltecalli High School. Most students who are in this high school have no other options; they have babies or jobs or complications that have kept the local Tucson high schools from being a fit. As I come in with their teacher, the students already look bored, but they also seem a little curious.

When I tell them that today we will be reading art, one young man says, "But Miss, I bleed when I read."

"Wow," I say, "that must make reading very uncomfortable. What bleeds?"

"My head, my nose, blood comes out of my ears …"

Reading is, indeed, a mighty injury to these students. Most of these 16- to 18-year-olds are reading at 3rd- to 5th-grade levels, and they struggle. I believe that the student who spoke up does feel as though he's bleeding when he's reading.

The rest of the students don't interact. They are hardened; their eyes say, "Sure. Show me."

I ask some of the students, in an attempt to make some connection, what they notice when they go to an art museum.

One tells me, "It's all quiet with people just staring like zombies."

"Yeah," I say, "these people are looking at the pictures like some people read books. Today I'm going to show you how to do that."

I quickly move their attention to a large picture by Romaire Bearden titled Pittsburgh Memories. I model the use of reading comprehension strategies, partnering with their teacher, taking turns looking at this piece of art by connecting it to our schema, asking questions, imagining smells, sounds, and tastes; we look deeply at the art by asking specific questions and guessing what the author is trying to say. We try to figure out what is most important together. Then we share with the students the synthesis of meaning that emerges after reading all of the recorded responses from this think-aloud.

Quickly, they are placed into small groups and challenged to do the same, this time with other pieces of art. I gave them copies of Figure 3.2 as a handout (with the back side blank) to record their thoughts. In this case, I selected Miners' Wives by Ben Shahn for the students to comment on (see Color Plate 1.5 on p. 187).

To get schemas activated, I asked, "What connections can we make to this piece?" then "What music, books, movies, or other experiences connect us to this piece of art?"

Here are some student responses:

"It's like classical music and a violin is being played in a sad tone."

"They are workers, like they are very poor and very dirty, like in a factory."

"Wives are sad or worried for the sake of their husbands."

Then I asked, "I wonder about the artist's choices and meaning. When we look at this piece of art, what do we wonder about?"

And the students said:

"What happened to this woman to make her look so sad?"

"Why are the pants hanging in the corner?"

"Why does she have such big hands?"

"Why are the guys walking away with their heads down?"

Next, I asked students to make an inference. "What can we assume about the lives of these individuals by looking at this piece of art?"

"We might think that these people have a sad life."

"I think she is worried."

"I'm guessing that they are a poor and lonely family."

I wanted students to make multisensory inferences, so I asked what sounds, smells, tastes, and textures the painting implied.

"It smells like smoke and dust from the factory and it looks very cold. I feel like I could hear footsteps in the piece."

Then, I asked, "What is the focal point? Where are your eyes drawn, and why?"

"To the woman because it feels like her eyes are looking into your soul."

"To her face and hands because she is not happy and she is just thinking about something that is bothering her."

Finally, I wanted students to try to pull all the pieces together.

"They work hard and still they are poor."

"I think she is worried because her husband died and that's why the men are walking away."

"The old lady with the baby is upset and maybe the baby will die too."

"And they have a hard life and then if her husband dies she will not have such a good life."

Without any further prompting, students started noticing even more details.

"The woman's eyes are very captivating. I feel that the people in this painting have sad thoughts throughout life."

"You know, I just knew it that somebody died."

I also used Man with a Hoe by Jean Francois Millet, which is especially effective in drawing out responses related to the senses.

A student said: "I can smell the smoke, taste thirst, hear the cows, and touch the dirt. I feel that the man is very tired and I see nothing but miles of land." Another said, "I smell slavery," and another commented, "I can smell the dryness of the dirt." One student put himself right into the picture: "My hands are hurting with a splinter."

We went through the rest of the procedures for this lesson, identifying powerful words, sharing choices, combining powerful words to make poems, and holding a gallery walk. We asked students to consider the presentations as works in an art gallery. Instead of just staring "like zombies," students read each others' ideas.

I didn't belabor the debriefing. In the coming days their teacher would use each element of the art comprehension strategies, but in relation to a text. Students would have opportunities to go more deeply into each of the six reading strategies. The power of the moment was that, as a group, they created ekphrastic poetry and proved that they didn't really bleed when they read. They were able to understand and respond to art, and create beautiful poetry.

In response to Miners' Wives, one group wrote the following poem.

In response to the painting Man with a Hoe by Jean-Francois Millet (see an image of the work on display at the Getty Center Los Angeles at http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=879), another group created the following poem.

Art that is associated with subject matter also works particularly well, as when the students studied the Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II. We selected images and photos from the books Topaz Moon: Chiura Obata's Art of the Internment by Kimi Kodani Hill (2000) and Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment Experience by the California Historical Society and Lawson Fusao Inada (2000). By using these powerful pieces of art, the students were better able to bring the emotional experience of the internment camps to the surface and into their lives.

Although the initial experience fits nicely into an extended block (75 to 90 minutes) the exercise can easily be spread over two days. And from this base, each reading strategy can be investigated more deeply. This process helps students recognize that discovering meaning in a difficult piece of art is within their reach, as is the meaning in difficult text. They learn by having the tools and taking the time to use them.