Simple Ideas to Fuse Art and Writing at the Secondary Level

by Amy Shultz

• Interpret famous images with words. Post several posters of reproduction artwork around the room. Ask students to form groups by standing by the piece of artwork that strikes them. Give groups time to discuss the artwork’s details, color choices, facial expressions, and other pertinent details. After discussion with their groups, students will independently write in the genre of their choice interpreting their artwork (Noden, 1999).
• Connect with portraiture. Display postcards or calendar-sized prints of portraits including paintings, sculptures and photographs from a variety of different styles and periods. Instruct students to quickly select one of the portraits on the basis of an immediate connection with a piece. Students should be given no more than ten minutes to write as if they are the person in the portrait (first person narrative). Next, students are to select an inanimate object found within the portrait. Students will again be given ten minutes to write; this time, they should write from the perspective of their chosen objects. Students should focus on the question of how it feels to be in this image. To take this lesson further, students may be asked to write how they are like the portrait, or to trade pictures with a partner, writing how they are like the person in their partner’s portrait (D'Amico, 2002).
• Discover how knowledge affects first impressions. Match students up with paintings or other works of art that are new to them, asking them to draft a first impression of the artwork. Then assign research questions (i.e. when it was created, by whom, where, and what circumstances may have influenced its creation). Students are to discuss and write about how their research affected their initial impressions. Were earlier views reinforced or modified? In discussion, students are to include specific information from research which changed or reinforced their original views (Smutny, 2002).
• Kindle new ideas for stories. Provide paintings, photographs for students, asking them to imagine what happened before and after the scenes depicted. Instruct students to use the visual image as the climactic moment of a story, the moment after the climax, or the moment before (Smutny, 2002).
• Launch investigative research. Give each student a name of a famous masterpiece. They are to imagine that their piece has disappeared from the museum. As the museum curator, it is their job to write a description of the artwork, including who created it, when it was created, and why they think someone would want to steal it. Or they can write a fictional piece about how they discovered a painting and exposed forgeries. What gave it away? (Smutny, 2002).
• Explore multiple points of view. Students are to choose a famous piece of art and write a fictional account based in fact of how it came to be in its current museum. They could write it from the point of view of the painting, the people who possessed it, or the people who were looking for it. For example, students may write about the extraordinary journey of the Mona Lisa from King Louis XIV's palace in Versailles to its current home in the Louvre (Smutny, 2002).
• Combine different sources for a news story. After collecting a variety of sources (photographs, paintings, music, and written material), students write a sketch, poem, script, or essay about a current event. They then write their news stories from a variety of viewpoints: a friend, teacher, mother or father, sister or brother, or the family pet (Smutny, 2002).

References:

D'Amico, Elizabeth.

"Breaking the Ice: Using personal narrative, personification and visual metaphors to access art." Out of WAC Newsletter Fall 2005 28 Aug 2007. http://www.plymouth.edu/wac/out_of_wac_newsletter.html

Noden, H. (1999).

Image grammar. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Smutny, Joan.

"Integrating the Arts into the Curriculum for Gifted Students." The ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education ERIC EC Digest #E631Sep 2002 28 Aug 2007 .http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/e631.html

Amy Shultz

Amy Shultz, former fourth grade teacher, works as a facilitator for the Buddy Teaching and Learning Center. She also writes for The Write Connection newsletter and The Writing Site,

under the Buddy System Project.

This featured article appeared in Volume 3, Number 1 issue of the Write Connections quarterly newsletter. View other archived newsletters , a topical organization of all newsletters, or sign-up to receive notification when the next newsletters are ready to download.