I didn't use to be a big visualizer. As a student I was much too practical and then probably too cool to do this. However, as a teacher I have found it to help me so much when I am modeling writing for my students. In fact, whenever I'm writing fiction it is a necessity. I lack much easy flowing imagination so I need to do this step to "see" what I am planning to write about before I write it. Otherwise, it is impossible to write the detail that I need to make the story realistic.
When I read, I am lucky that I grew up in a home where cable TV didn't exist and books aplenty did. So as a reader, visualising comes naturally. It almost bothers me when an author goes into so much detail that it limits what I can see in my head or disagrees with what I see in my head. That is why I didn't want to read Freedom Writers. I had already seen the movie and it is no fun to read a book when the movie limits what you can see in your head. Plus I wasn't really impressed by the movie, so that also sets the book up in a bad light for me.
As a teacher, it is painfully obvious which students have theability to imagine and those that don't. I do an activity within my writing class when I let them write fiction, specifically fantasy and sci-fi where they have to visualize a fictitious creature and all it's workable parts. They get to draw a picture of it but also have to write expositorally about how each of its "adaptations" allow it to live in the setting it does. Then of course we begin developing the setting of the students' stories.
How do we wake up the sleeping imagination of students? That is a wonderful question that I don't know the right answer to. I know what with art and writing and reading we have to make using our imaginations fun. But for something to be fun for someone they generally have to be good at it or see themselves getting better at it. So many students have not have their imaginations developed at all when they were little so they are not good at it and then start to hate it when their teachers give them to opportunity to use their imagination.
That is why I like fantasy obsession in YA right now. What a great way for our students to have to look outside the box. Let's just hope they read the book before seeing the movie!
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For me, because I visualize so much, I can't keep up with my imagination when I'm writing stories and poems! Thanks for sharing the other side of that.
ReplyDeleteI can also see your point about it needing to be fun and seeing progress for students to perhaps enjoy the visualization activities. I have had students when given a choice who would much rather write a paper about the facts of a story than draw something about it. It's making it fun and exciting, and creating an environment where it is okay if you aren't an amazing artist. We need to create an environment where it is fun to show how we picture the scenes.
That's a challenge, and like you, I don't have a great answer to it still.
I used to play a tape for my second graders (over 15 years ago) that was called guided imagery. They would imagine walking through a meadow. The tape would give a lot of detail to visualize. At the end they would see a friendly animal that would tell them a secret.
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