Introduction
On any given day, my students excitedly create paintings and drawing that depict narratives of their family lives, special events and people they admire. Welcome to Mrs. Williams’ class, where students are given freedom, the freedom to create something called “Free Art.” It’s a moment during class, after students have completed their initial class assignments, when they are given the opportunity to create any image of their choosing. Furthermore, they are also given the liberty to select any medium of their choice. So these students may choose to create with a range of materials, from coloring pencils to paint. Their pictures express many emotions and subjects from the love of unicorns floating on rainbows, to the admiration of Stephen Curry, a star basketball player for the Golden State Warriors. These lovely pieces of artwork often inspire my students to stand and give the equivalent of a verbal dissertation, describing every detail of the events that they depict on paper. These accounts include razor sharp descriptions of the events that took place before and after their crayon figure jumps the rainbow or slam dunks the basketball with four seconds left in the game. These children with such enthusiasm and confidence want to share with the entire class every detail of the story that they have created in a singular image. Yet, when asked to write me a story about these pictures, they wither into the shadows as if I have stolen the sun and their joy. “What is the problem?” I’ve often wondered. How can a student be so expressive verbally and visually but give me a one sentence summary of what took them almost 15 minutes to describe to the class. Why are my students so stymied by the process of writing? I wasn’t sure, but I knew that I wanted to find exciting ways to help them overcome the obstacles that steer them away from becoming great writers as well as artists.
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