Visualizing: Seeing for Yourself PDF

# Visualizing ## See for Yourself Picture this: Saturday morning, eight o'clock. One sleepy dad baking cinnamon rolls, two bed-headed daughters sitting at the kitchen table, and one mom who is thinking about a new chapter. **MOM:** Do you like it when movies are made from books you've read? **BL...

# Visualizing ## See for Yourself Picture this: Saturday morning, eight o'clock. One sleepy dad baking cinnamon rolls, two bed-headed daughters sitting at the kitchen table, and one mom who is thinking about a new chapter. **MOM:** Do you like it when movies are made from books you've read? **BLYTHE (age 10):** I loved watching _The Chronicles of Narnia_ because it matched the pictures I had in my head from reading the book. I would see something and think, “Yes. That’s what I saw when I read.” **BRYNNE (age 9):** Well, that’s not what happened with _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_! I felt confused when I watched the original version of the movie. But it ended up being a good thing because it made me keep comparing the book and the movie all the way through. It was like a Venn diagram in my head. **BLYTHE:** I like reading the book first so I can make the pictures before I see them. But I saw _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone_ before I read the book, and then when I did read it, my pictures matched the movie. This can be good or bad. It can help you to have pictures already in your mind, but it can also take away pictures you invent. **DAD:** I’ve got to say it bothered me when I heard that Tom Hanks would be the lead in the movie of _The da Vinci Code_. Not that I don’t like his acting, but the whole time I was reading the book I had already cast Harrison Ford to play the lead role. **BRYNNE:** I don’t like pictures to get in my head before I read the book. If you see the movie first, it’s like your own ideas get erased out of your head forever. **MOM:** Do you ever have trouble visualizing while you’re reading? What do you do? **BLYTHE:** Sometimes I need help getting the pictures. Like with _The Beacon Street Girls_ series, I started with book five and I couldn’t get the background in my mind from the other books, so I went to the Internet. Some books have Internet sites where you can see pictures that might help you understand the book. That is an easy way to get images if you are having trouble. **DAD:** If I get distracted or lose the pictures in my head, I reread to try to start them up again. I also know to slow my reading pace, and usually that helps. **BRYNNE:** I like drawing what I see. It helps me because when you do it in your mind, you think you have all the information you can think of. But when you draw it, all of the details come out on the paper, and you didn’t even realize they were there. **BLYTHE:** Drawing mental images is not helpful to me because my mind can draw better than my hand can. The artwork in my head is like what a famous artist could paint. But I can’t draw like that yet. If my teacher asks me to draw my mental images, I feel frustrated because it doesn’t turn out like what I imagined. I would way rather talk about it than draw it. I can explain what I was seeing and I feel better about that. This breakfast conversation reminds me of several things. One, I’ve been talking about thinking strategies way too much around my family. My husband and kids sound just like reading teachers! Two, the process and product of one’s visualization are so personal. While each person’s images are unique and valuable, not everyone feels comfortable sharing his mental pictures through drawing. Three, our engagement with information, be it through books or media, is deepened through the creation of images in our minds. Jeffrey Wilhelm goes as far as to say that “without visualization, students cannot comprehend, and reading cannot be said to be reading” (2004, 9). Writers themselves can provide exceptional insight into this strategy. A wonderful little book titled _Madeleine L'Engle Herself_ (2001) taught me so much about the convergence of reading, writing, and thinking. L’Engle gives special consideration to the power of visualization. “Reading is an incredibly creative act. Once a schoolchild asked about all of the illustrations in my books and was a little bit surprised that they’re not illustrated. He’d read them and seen the illustrations in his own mind. So to read a book is to create a book. To read a book is to listen, to visualize, to see. If the reader, child or adult, cannot create the book along with the writer, the book is stillborn” (164). Since our students are absolutely accustomed to visual literacies—websites, cartoons, movies, print media, and so on—how smart we would be to regard this as a teaching and learning advantage! By appreciating our students' affinity for the visual, and by noticing and naming visualization as a thinking strategy, we can bolster motivation and confidence as our kids become stronger readers. ## Launching Sequence: Visualizing ### Concrete Experience: A Room with a View **Materials needed:** one cardboard tube for each student (the tube from a roll of paper towels can be cut into thirds), objects from nature, drawing paper Kids always like to be around when it’s time to wrap gifts. It’s not so much that they enjoy the act of giving... it has more to do with playing with the cardboard tubes when the wrapping paper is gone! Whenever I use cardboard tubes at school, most kids are inclined to use them as a spyglass. When we use a viewfinder, the world changes. Objects become clearer, colors more vivid. Cardboard tubes are ideal to use for the introduction of visualizing... and it’s easy to amass a collection of these tools to help launch the study of visualizing. All you need is a cardboard tube for each student; the ones from toilet paper rolls and paper towels work perfectly. The second graders in Vikki Henshey’s class were just as I expected: eager to get their hands on the cardboard tubes and spy around the classroom. At first I let the kids experiment, looking out the window, at each other, and around the room. After a few minutes, I got them settled back into their seats. I asked them to turn and talk about why it seems so interesting to look through these tubes. **The world looks different.** **It is like I am in another room looking through a keyhole.** **It looks cool because the tube makes it dark all around the thing you are looking at.** **I can focus better.** Next I asked the students to use their visualizing tubes (as they’ve come to be called) to focus on one of the concrete items I had positioned around the classroom. Perched on top of file cabinets, bookshelves, and tables were placed a variety of items: a conch shell, a large pinecone, a potted plant, a rusty metal bucket, a small bird feeder. I invited the kids to spend a couple of minutes looking through the tubes at the items. I asked them to choose one item that captured their interest, maybe something that triggered a memory or seemed particularly interesting. Kids spent time looking at the chosen object, picturing where it might belong (in the forest? on a back porch?) and visualizing what sights, smells, sounds, and sensations might be surrounding it. Then the students sketched their visualizations on plain paper or found a friend to talk with about their mental images. After kids had a chance to think deeply about their images, I grouped students according to the objects they had chosen. This gave kids the chance to notice how everyone sees things in different ways, how our visualizations are as individual as we are. I then explained to the class how this experience connects with reading. “Sometimes when you read, the writing helps you focus on something. Your brain can see it clearly, as if you were right there. Not only can you see with your mind, but sometimes you can smell, taste, hear, and feel as well. We can call this visualizing, or making mental or sensory images. We have the ability to create these sensations in our heads, just by reading the print on the page. It’s like magic! Being able to visualize makes reading so much more fun. Turn and talk to a friend about a time when you read something or someone read to you and you could actually see or feel what was going on in the text.” As usual, the kids had lots of great examples. **When my mom read _Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle_ to my brother and me, I closed my eyes and could still see what was going on.** **Mrs. Henshey reads out-loud to us and I can picture what’s happening because she uses different voices.** **When I read _Toes_, I could see all the crazy things the cat did. I was picturing my own cat in my mind when I read that book.** **It sort of feels like dreams in my head when I read something really good.** This concrete experience creates a wonderful opportunity to launch conversation about visualization, to emphasize our interesting differences, and to allow kids to indulge in a simple childhood pleasure: looking through a cardboard tube! ## Sensory Exercises: Visualizing ### Time-Tested and Teacher Approved There are many easy ways to reinforce the practice of creating visual images, and many of these ideas have been used for decades. When framed with conversation filled with strategic language, however, these exercises turn from superficial to substantive. As kids begin to talk about this strategy, encourage them to refer to the thinking stems chart. (See Figure 7-2). **Consider the following list of sensory supports:** - Have students listen to an old radio show with a partner (check your public library). They can pause every five to seven minutes to turn and talk about what images they’ve created. - Have students listen to a read-aloud while drawing in sketchbooks. - Soak cotton balls in familiar liquids (orange juice, mouthwash, salad dressing, suntan oil, etc.). Place the cotton balls in small plastic bags. Circulate the bags and discuss the mental images that are fostered by the smells. - Pass around paper bags with mystery objects inside. As students handle each object, they can talk to a partner about what they “see.” - Have students search magazines for images that support a certain topic or theme. - Ask students to create a time line using only pictures. **Have children listen to a picture book without looking at the illustrations. Then they can reread it themselves and notice how their mental images change as they assimilate the images of the illustrator.** **Have kids listen to a recording of everyday sounds. They can talk about the images that they conjure up as they listen.** **Have students look at a book of optical illusions. This is a wonderful way to begin conversations about how your brain sees in a different way than your eyes do.** ## Mental Images Through Music Music is precisely the vehicle through which kids can learn to visualize. Songs speak directly to our brains, evoking highly sensory mental images and pairing them with emotion. Songwriters use imagery more than any other device, enabling the listener to develop the ability to visualize. Some students know how to sit back and enjoy listening to music; often these children experience rich mental images while appreciating songs. Many more students, however, lack a musical schema, not having been exposed to much more than their parents’ favorite radio station. Capturing time to relax, listen, and imagine with music can support the beginnings of visual creativity for many children. With so many of my students, the music we share gives them their very first experiences with mental imagery. Be on the lookout for music that gives kids the freedom to create. Here are a few pieces that my students have enjoyed: - “Old Friends/Bookends,” Simon and Garfunkel - “English Tea,” Paul McCartney ## Dorothea Lange: True Vision It only makes sense that if we want to learn how to see, to teach our students to see, we should spend time with a master. Spend some time with Dorothea Lange and you’ll understand. Every time I experience her wondrous photographs, I redefine what it means to visualize. I look at Lange’s work and realize that seeing is not about colors, and not even so much about the subjects. Seeing is about feeling. It’s about how your senses reassign your emotions and thoughts. Learning about Lange’s life and art can provide a way to help students practice visualizing settings, people, and even ideas. Kids are more interested in Lange’s work when they catch a glimpse of her childhood and learn how personal tragedy only served as motivation. Dorothea was stricken with polio when she was only seven, and she was nicknamed Limpy by the neighborhood children. Her father left the family when Dorothea was twelve, never to return. Dorothea grew up feeling invisible and disconnected. That is, until she attached herself, both literally and figuratively, to a camera. Before she even owned a camera, Dorothea decided that being a photographer was what she should do with her life. Dorothea eventually traveled America, then the world, capturing the sights, smells, and sounds of the human condition in her photographs. She went on to become internationally known, teaching us to see ourselves in a more honest way. Lange held the gift of “thereness,” just the characteristic we wish for our readers. She experienced each moment in a sensory dimension, her mind open to every new thought and experience. Let your students spend time with Dorothea. Share her story and photographs, all the while noticing the sensory images they evoke. Use prompts like these as you talk about what these pictures help you see. - What lies just beyond the frame of the photo? - What sounds would surround this moment in time? - How would the air feel? Dry? Humid? Still? - Can you smell anything in this photo? - What feelings rise up in you? As always, the schema your students bring to the table will directly impact their responses. Expect and appreciate this beautiful diversity! Collections of Dorothea Lange’s work are available in bookstores and online. Some of her more famous works are ideal for evoking sensory images. Look for “Migrant Mother” (1936), “Alabama Farm” (1938), “Homeless Family” (1938), “Riverbank Gas Station” (1940), “New York City” (1952), and “Jake Jones’s Hands” (1953). ## Wordless Book: Sidewalk Circus Sometimes only a child can truly see. In _Sidewalk Circus_, two young children are able to see the circus before it even comes to town. Paul Fleischman and Kevin Hawkes (2004) unite to give us this brilliant wordless book, perfect for pointing out the imaginative power of children. After conceiving this story, Fleischman recognized that his ideas would best be communicated without words. Hawkes’ vibrant illustrations lead us down the city sidewalk, looking through the eyes of a child. As always, surround this wordless book with lots of opportunities for student-to-student talk. Students will merge inferring and visualization to bolster their conversation around the experience of _Sidewalk Circus_. Other wordless series easily support visualization. Acquaint your students with the many wordless books of Emily Arnold McCully and the _Carl the Dog_ series by Alexandra Day. Students will create mental pictures beyond the illustrations on the pages, constructing meaning with each pleasurable step. ## Quotes About Visualizing to Get Kids Talking! - When your head’s full of pictures, they have to come out. *—Bill Maynard, author* - The true seeing is within. *—George Elliot, novelist* - I visualize things in my mind before I have to do them. It’s like having a mental workshop. *—Jack Youngblood, professional football player* - Imagination is the true magic carpet. *—Norman Vincent Peale, theologian* - The man who has no imagination has no wings. *—Muhammad Ali, professional boxer* - A good snapshot stops a moment from running away. *—Eudora Welty, writer* - All thought depends upon the image. *—Ferdinand de Saussure, linguist* - Words serve as fixatives for mental images. *—Selma H. Frailberg, medical researcher* ## Time for Text: Visualizing Need ideas for great text and thoughtful lessons with a focus on visualizing? Here are some resources to see you on your way! - Cunningham, Andie, and Ruth Shagoury. 2005. _Starting with Comprehension_. Portland, ME: Stenhouse. See Chapter 4, “Using Movement, Mind Pictures, and Metaphor to Comprehend.” - Harvey, Stephanie, and Anne Goudvis. 2000. _Strategies That Work_. Portland, ME: Stenhouse. See Chapter 8, “Visualizing and Inferring: Strategies That Enhance Understanding.” - Hoyt, Linda. 2000. _Snapshots_. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. See pages 43-46, “Visualizing During Reading.” - 2002. _Make It Real_. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. See Chapter 11, “Love Those Visuals: Photographs, Diagrams, and Learning to Love Captions.” - Miller, Debbie. 2002. _Reading with Meaning_. Portland, ME: Stenhouse. See Chapter 6, “Creating Mental Images.” - Oczkus, Lori. 2004. _Super 6 Comprehension Strategies_. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon. See the section titled, “Can You See It?” - Szymusiak, Karen, and Franki Sibberson. 2001. _Beyond Leveled Books_. Portland, ME: Stenhouse. See page 33, “Reading Descriptive Language to Visualize Settings.” - Tovani, Cris. 2000. _I Read It, but I Don’t Get It_. Portland, ME: Stenhouse. See Chapter 5, “Fix It!” and Appendix C. - Wilhelm, Jeffrey D. 2004. _Reading IS Seeing_. New York: Scholastic. - Zimmermann, Susan, and Chryse Hutchins. 2003. _7 Keys to Comprehension_. New York: Three Rivers. See Chapter 2, “Motion Picture of the Mind.”