Painting Writing, Writing Painting: Thinking, Seeing, and Problem Solving Through Story

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to share how the authors supported kindergartners’ and first graders’ developing creativity through stories they composed in writing and art. Over eight years, the authors explored ways to use picturebooks as mentor texts to help students explore how the authors and artists create meaning multimodally. This article shares minilessons and examples of how students creatively and imaginatively told their stories; learned to think, see, and reason; and invented and problem solved their stories, seamlessly weaving their meanings into writing and art.

Kindergarten Children’s Talk About Illustration Techniques in an Almost Wordless Picturebook

“…Reflecting Ray's (2010) emphasis on the intentionality of acts of composition, the nature of the classroom instruction and whole class and small group discourse communicated to the children that "text happens because someone makes it happen and decides it should be that way" (p. 43) for particular purposes. Similar to studies reviewed above (e.g., Kesler et al, 2021;Martens et al, 2012Martens et al, /2013Martens et al, , 2018Pantaleo, 2016Pantaleo, , 2017Villarreal et al, 2015), during the research with the Kindergarten children, the picturebooks were featured as texts to develop student knowledge about the meaning affordances of particular semiotic resources and the purposeful design work by creators of picturebooks. Indeed, the students' discourse communicates an understanding of how elements of visual art and design are used purposefully by sign-makers to represent particular meanings to realize their interests.…”

“…As noted previously, researchers have reported on how teachers' mediation of picturebooks is affected by their awareness and understanding of 'what' to look for in picturebook artwork, and that such teacher knowledge is central to deepening students' experiences of and visual semiotic work with this format of literature (e.g., Kesler et al, 2021;Martens et al, 2012Martens et al, /2013Martens et al, , 2018Pantaleo, 2016Pantaleo, , 2017Villarreal et al, 2015). According to Ray (2010), by studying illustrations in picturebooks with children, adults can enhance their own viewing experiences with respect to what they see in artwork, as well as their understanding and thinking about, and aesthetic awareness of the design decisions underlying the artwork (p. 93).…”

“…Reporting on their findings from two studies with primary grades teachers and children, Martens et al (2012Martens et al ( /2013Martens et al ( , 2018 described how instruction about various elements of visual art and principles of design affected children's knowledge and viewing of and thinking about the concepts under study, as well as students' use of "writing and art to tell their stories" (Martens et al, 2018, p. 672). I (Pantaleo, 2016(Pantaleo, , 2017) also worked with primary grade students during two classroom-based projects and explored how explicit pedagogy about elements of visual art and design affected students' perception, understanding and appreciation of the artwork in picturebooks, as well as their subsequent application of the same foci elements when they created their own multimodal texts.…”

Verbal and Visual Arts Engagement in University Classrooms

“…Also, the interrelation of writing, painting, thinking, seeing, and problem solving, and its impact are well evaluated but mostly in reading picture books for first graders. 10 This relationship has not been extensively explored in a university context. This research review suggests that the interdisciplinary approach to the verbal and visual arts appears relatively rare and primarily occurs in a pre-university context.…”