jujsky Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 I just read (and I wrote briefly about it in my latest blog before I finished the book) The Power of Pictures: Creating Pathways to Literacy Through Art by Beth Olshansky. Has anyone else read this or had experience with the Picture Writing or Image-Making Within the Writing process? The book and video gave a brief overview. I became interested in this when I saw the end result -- a book my son's active first-grader wrote in PS this year. The book makes so much sense, and integrates writing, art, and literature (you can even use this approach for fact-based reports). She believes that a story has two languages -- pictures and words. By learning to "read" the pictures and write to pictures they create, students become stronger writers. It's supposed to be good for kids who are not traditional, sit-down, verbal learners. This isn't designed for homeschoolers, but I think it has a lot of potential to work -- especially since homeschoolers can spend the 60-90 minutes 3X/week she recommends more easily than PS since we don't work under the same restrictions. I think this could really work for History Kid. I haven't been this excited in trying something new in a long, long time! I was planning to use IEW's Fables, Myths, and Fairy Tales, but I'm going to shelve it for now and see if this approach works better. IEW's stuff looks good, but it wasn't exactly what I was expecting in that unit. I thought it would be a bit more organic story-telling and less outlining and analyzing. I've been using that approach for the last couple years (not with IEW, but with K12) and it hasn't been working well -- especially not for History Kid. It's like pulling teeth to get him to do what he's supposed to do. To be clear, the book isn't a complete curriculum. It comes with a short DVD and it gives an overview of the two approaches and a couple of mini-lessons. The book also gives you ideas of the types of picture books to use, and explains how you can create our own units of study with this method. She does offer some other programs on her website that are quite a bit more expensive than the book (some you can't buy -- you can only get them at teacher seminars) but I'm thinking that if I can't figure out the method based on the book and video I watched, I might buy the Image-Making program which is step-by-step. If anyone has used this (some former teachers may have) I'd be interested in hearing about your experience teaching and using this program. I'm going to try to blog more regularly this year just to keep a written record of what we're doing, so I'll be posting about the process as we go through it in case anyone is interested. I'm going to do the projects right along with the kids partly to model (modeling is a big part of the process) but also because it looks like so much fun that I want to do it too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
She Reads a Lot Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 (edited) This looks like a wonderful book! So wonderful, in fact, that I may end up ordering it to use with my 3rd grade ds! Love the idea of using art/pictures to jump start ideas for writing! You might also want to look at the thread by Alte Veste Academy on the book by Jennifer Jacobson called "No More 'I'm Done!': Fostering Independent Writers in the Primary Grades" (here is the thread: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showthread.php?t=404940&highlight=WWE+supplement) It uses the writer's workshop concept, and many of her mini-lessons rely on picture books to help show kids how to implement the writing concepts (mostly based on the six traits). I'm thinking I might start our year out using the Power of Pictures lessons (thank you for posting this!!) and gradually transition to using Jacobson's mini-lessons. Or even alternate them later in the year--I can't tell how many mini-lessons the Olshansky book contains but the Jacobson has a full year of mini-lessons (I've got through week 21 scheduled out already and have plenty left for a full shcool year). So I can't say anything about the book you asked about, other than that I spent an hour researching it last night and am very impressed. But hopefully this will bump you up and someone who has used it will respond. I figure for the $21 the book/CD costs on Amazon, I'm willing to take a risk and order it. I told my son about it and he's excited! Christina Edited July 24, 2012 by StinaInColorado Fixed spelling of author's name. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
She Reads a Lot Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 Has anyone used this??? Anyone?? I'm as curious as the OP is :lol:... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicholas_mom Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 Sorry, no, but THANk YOU! This looks awesome. I hope you get another! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atozmom Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
She Reads a Lot Posted July 27, 2012 Share Posted July 27, 2012 (edited) So my copy of The Power of Pictures arrived yesterday and it is so well done! I worked last night and was organizing a stack of curricula that I've been avoiding yesterday, but I finally started reading it last night and I am impressed! She starts out chapter 1 with a story about a little boy struggling in school that almost made me cry (pretty much a description of my ds in ps and exactly why we pulled him out). The change in him when he encountered using pictures/collages as a base for writing was so inspiring. I think this is going to make a tremendous difference in my son's ability to get a story down on paper!! Also interesting: the author of this book/method is a visual/kinesthetic learner herself. She discusses her struggles in left-brained/verbal public school as part of the basis for her art-based literacy, since she clearly wasn't the only right-brained person who didn't fit the mold of public school. I know this thread has been slow but I want to say thank you for posting about this book! I am thrilled. I would never have heard of it without your post, and I am quite grateful. I do wish she had more than what looks like about seven mini-lessons in the book. I may end up taking the plunge and getting the $20 more in-depth DVD she has for this. If you buy it, will you please post here or send me a PM to say what it is like?? Regardless, what a revolutionary and fabulous method for helping our visual kiddos learn to write in a way that fits them! My son loves history, too, BTW--asks for it first every. single. day (we do TruthQuest and he adores the living books). That's part of why I ordered the book--our boys sound similar, so I thought it might work for us, too. Christina Edited July 27, 2012 by StinaInColorado Fixed a typo. Yes, I'm anal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammyw Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 Just ordered it through our library to try it out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
queenie Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 I wish our library had it. It looks great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
She Reads a Lot Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Just wanted to come back and say thank you to the OP. I love this book so much! I wish all school could be done hippy style. I suppose it could but I don't know how to do it. I can't wait to get started with in a few weeks. So thank you!! I'll second that "thank you" to the OP! My big box of the Image Making TM and art supplies arrived on Monday, and I've spent as much time as possible this week reading the TM and creating a schedule so I've got the right picture books on hand when I need them for mini-lessons. I'm a little daunted by the prospect of making the textured papers, but her directions seem clear so I'm sure it will go fine once we dive in. I wish I'd had art supplies on hand the way you do, Carol, but I think the $$ spent will be worth it in the end. I think this is going to be huge for my son's writing so yay!! Christina Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
besroma Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 I have had this book in my Amazon cart since I read this post. The price dropped to $21.09 today, so I decided to order it. OP, the updates on your blog look great. Your kids are doing a wonderful job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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