VISUAL and Other Ways of Representing

Visual Journaling

• Visual journaling can express the way you see the novel in your minds’ eye. Images combined with words can be a unique and powerful tool to self-discovery and personal creativity

• Keeping this kind of journal opens the door to many creative ways of expressing your thoughts

and feelings about the literature you are engaged with

• You can create your own images and embellish your journal in anyway that pleases you.

• Even if you think you don't have an artistic bone in your body give it a try I bet you'll be surprised at how creative you really are.

Resources Are All Around You

The resources for creating your visual journal experience all around you. Go to the dollar store, they have awesome art supplies.

You can draw your own images, use photos, computer generated art cut outs from magazines, greeting cards etc.

Even nature can provide materials pressed flowers or beautiful fall leaves (Remember when you were in grade school and you were taught how to press colorful fall leaves between two

sheets of waxed paper?).

Words and Images

Combining words and images is a powerful tool for self expression. Once you've written your journal entry let the words conjure up images and illustrate the page to express the feelings behind the words. Words and images compliment each other very well

and help you see deeper into their meaning.

Your pages should push the convention of how images and text are combined

ROMEO AND JULIETTE

MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA

OTHELLO

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

THE MIDDLE PASSAGE Ever wondered how the ancestors survived

the boat ride from Africa to America? Smells of everybody's lives jumbled together as they lay flanked side by side, in a cess pool

of blood, tears, and stool, dreaming the unreadable. Deep in the bowels of a slave ship,

where many made their tomb, a mother's tears flowed from dried-eyed ducts,

for the suckling babe snatched from her breast, while hating the enemy whose seed now grew in her womb.

Rattling of shackles never quite able to drown out the re-memory of sun-drenched savannahs

where they once roamed as kings and queens pulverized the spirit. . .

Were they bludgeoned into mindless stupor? Or did they tell themselves,

"We must be strong; we must survive for our future sons and daughters"?

For survive they did...only to endure the untreatable...bondage...false freedom...lynching...now drugs... Ever wondered what the ancestors would believe

if they knew of the perilous journey their future seed must fork through the middle passage from their mother's crack-filled womb?

Deep in the caverns of an incubator, where many make their tomb,

a drug baby's life shackled to tubes, ventilators, not guaranteed to save,

like mother's milk, an umbilical cord,

but an alien world...Now, who's the slave?

You can also choose

• To write a poem about the them, conflict, characters, etc.

• A song that is representative of theme, conflict, symbolism, character, etc.

• Write a letter

• Internal Monologue

• Creative writing piece.

• An option of your choice.