Simple Ideas to Fuse Art and Writing at the Primary Level

by Amy Shultz

• Use art as a means for revising descriptive writing. After students have written a descriptive piece, have them draw an image matching their descriptions. Students should discuss the drawing with a partner and revise the original description after thoughtful comparison (Olson, 1992).
• Use art to aid progressing writers. After each unit of study, have students draw a picture of what they learned. As they progress as writers, have them first talk about their picture, then dictate their words out loud, dictate and trace, dictate and copy, and finally, write about their drawing (Culham, 2005).
• Try a storyboard. Encourage children to draft their ideas in picture format. Then, for each picture, give them time to talk through their story, adding or revising drawings as they “read their pictures.” Finally, they use words on a page to tell their story (Olshansky, 2003).
• Take your kids on an art adventure. Pull together an image collection of famous works of art from the internet. Each day present one new picture, looking for action and describing words. Post an on-going list of these words, and ask children to use these words in their daily journals.
• Build a mood vocabulary through self-portraits. Each day ask children to draw a self-portrait for a different mood, ex. sleepy, excited, angry, pouty, content, surprised, etc. Post the mood words and ask kids to arrange their self-portraits under the correct mood. Encourage students to use these words in their daily journals.

References:

Culham, R. (2005).

6+1 Traits of writing: The Complete guide for the primary grades. New York: Scholastic.

Olson, J. L. (1992).

Envisioning writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Olshansky, Beth.

"Image Making Within The Writing Process." Picturing writing: Fostering literacy through art and image making within the writing process. 2003. Center for the Advancement of Art-Based Literacy. 22 Aug 2007. http://www.picturingwriting.org/

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.