Developing a Repertoire of Skills for Visual Perception and Artistic Response

Tapping the Narrative Impulse

“…developing a visual vocabulary for story telling, exploring narrative formats, and pursuing different ways of generating stories provide substantial learning in art while serving, at the same time, a very personal and human need.” ~Karen Lee Carroll

Carroll tells us that the narratives of everyday life lead into opportunities for students to “reflect upon and find meaning in their experiences.” Memorable events, observations, themes, identities, and experiences all provide opportunities for the development of visual stories. Other art forms, works of art, and stories of all types are ripe for cultivating visual storytelling.

The visual narrative vocabulary can be developed in many ways:

as required to illustrate key components of the story such as time of day, weather, the creation of character and setting.

Incrementally as students develop the need, in manipulation of material / problem solving, and in response to the need for a greater degree of complexity in regard to sophistication and content.

“Different visual forms accommodate story in different ways.” The author references sequential story – books, scrolls, storyboard, cartoons and animation. Examples of other forms such as quilts and collages offer the story elements as a whole. Single forms can serve as prompts for stories. Contemporary media provides even further opportunities for narrative.

Carroll places words and images in a symbiotic relationship, each feeding and enriching the other.

The following event took place in my art room this past year. I had little to do with the way this story unfolds, but consider myself privileged just to have been an observer:

     Second grade students were completing a project which had stretched over the course of several class periods, as they finished I allowed them to select a piece of free draw paper. On this day, Xavier finished his work, selected free draw paper, and labored away, head down, pencil in hand. He worked for at least thirty minutes, ignoring the chatter of those around him. At the end of class he presented me the paper. “Mrs. Lamme,” he said, “I’ve written a story.” One side of his paper featured an elaborate drawing of two birds engaged in a speech bubble conversation. The other side of the paper revealed a full-page story complete with a beginning, middle, and end. There was dialog, and the story made sense.  What makes this event so profound is that this particular second grade student had to repeat first grade, had been through a battery of tests, and had developed, to anyone’s knowledge, very little written language skills other than the ability to write his name! Tears came to my eyes as I took receipt of this precious gift. His classroom teacher was dumbfounded and had trouble believing what took place.

It seems that for some reason Xavier had stored these verbal narrative skills somewhere deep inside himself and up until he found a need to use them in illustrating a story completely of his own design, he simply did not use them at all.  It was his choice to tap into the narrative impulse! A perfect illustration of Duncum’s principle of intertextuality and Carroll’s verbal / visual symbiotic relationship! A perfect illustration of the very best day an art teacher can ever hope to have!

Oh, by the way, just in case you were wondering, spurred by his first successful story writing experience, Xavier continues to both write and illustrate. He aspires one day to be an author. Godspeed, my little one!