Blog 3

As a young student I felt like I was asked to think about imagery a lot more in terms of my literary journey. Perhaps that was because I was having to read more things with images than not. We are now in a world where seemingly everything we read has at least a tethered idea to something visual, the covers of a book (which are wildly important and very underrated), mass product paperback editions, film or television adaptations, that may or may not be great adaptations but can be helpful regardless, those film posters, which essentially are art work for the story. That is where I started. I think for a long time I fought against the reality of everything was being made into a visual medium, and maybe that is where I went wrong. English educator is the path I am on, so instead of fighting a big medium that may help my students engage, why not lean into it. My favorite author is James Baldwin, a genius, and unfortunately seeming like a person who does not get read as much as he should, in my humble opinion. One of his masterpieces is If Beale Street Could Talk . This is an example of a beautifully dense novel, and also a beautiful and visually stunning adaptation from another genius Barry Jenkins. So i decided to create a jamboard visually showing the cover of the novel, and one of the films posters. Two very different pieces of art, but very telling in their own right. Both can help tell us something about the story, either context clues about what the story may be about, locations inside the story, something about the author or the characters. The colors that are used can be a huge clue. Are there warm or cool colors depicted? What do those colors potentially mean? Being able to get away from just reading the words on the page, and being able to use your minds a little creatively to help me and my students tell or understand the story can be huge for a better more complete understanding. Using imagery does not have to be a skill that stops in sixth grade, we can use it to our benefit, and a way to engage in the story. After you read and analyze the two images, either before or after the novel. I would show the images prior to reading, and then analyze them further after the reading to see where we were correct, and maybe what we learned or found to be the intention. This idea can be even taken a step further, while trying to think of a project idea to go with the novel and the themes, some of your students could create their own book sleeves or movie posters, and include what they found to be most important, what struck them when they were reading and why that was so important. There are so many ways to use the work of others to your benefit, I think it would be silly not to at least try and find multi modal or other visual or audible elements to the benefit of the classroom. Another thought that I had was listening to the score of the film, and analyzing and compare its intention and how it matches up with the intention of the novel as a way to layer in an audible aspect to the class.

https://jamboard.google.com/d/10RiHvRhCel1j62Y87EimurVvXqU1fx1UvsQ-9ruXj0I/edit?usp=sharing