You are on page 1of 4

Informational Essay Informational Essay: Drawing Words

Hope Vaughn 1

For many students, regardless of age, writing can be a real challenge. Putting print onto a blank page can be overwhelming for even the most studious of children. With the pressure to create quality work out of thin air, many students develop writing related anxiety and may even begin to hate what could be a wonderful outlet for their self-expression. Unfortunately, many students find themselves in this situation, and as a result never progress in their writing abilities. Teachers, however, have the power to prevent this cycle of apprehension and arrested development by providing their students with a simple strategy for getting over their fear of the blank page: drawing. Although there still exists many in the education world who view drawing in the classroom as a waste of valuable instruction time, research is certainly on the side of the doodle. In the article Page Consciousness: The Development of Writing with Illustration, author Paul Johnson looks at the association between children creating their own illustrated books and the advancement of their literacy skills (1996). As Johnson found, students gain deeper understanding of written and visual language. In a study of elementary students, many of whom were English language learners, Johnson observed that students wrote longer, more coherent and more detailed pieces when given the opportunity to draw beforehand. The students created storyboards that they then transferred into a bound book format. Not only were the students more successful in their writing overall, but they were also much more driven to get started and give it their all (Johnson, 1996). In a similar study of sixth grade students, researcher Clyde Jones found that students were more willing to take creative risks with their writing when able to create visual art in conjuncture (Jones, P., 1962). Teachers noticed their students opening up and becoming more

Informational Essay

Hope Vaughn 2

personally invested in their writing. Once the students saw their writing as an extension of their art, their motivation to write increased substantially (Jones,P., 1962). Sixth graders who complained about writing before began asking to work in their journals or make books. Writing, just like painting, drawing or other forms of visual art, became a means of exploring their creativity in a time when many students are trying to figure out exactly who they are. Drawing has tremendous benefits for children of younger grades as well. For those who do not have a strong enough command of language to produce written meaning, art gives them the opportunity to express their thoughts and tell a story (Steffani, S. & Selvester, P., 2009). Young children as early as pre-school, can begin to develop literacy skills, as well as fine motor skills, through drawing. Students begin to make the connection that what they put down on the page has to be delivered in such a way that it makes sense to the person viewing it. They also begin to see how images and symbols carry meaning. Such representational understanding helps them a great deal later in their education with writing, reading and even math (Steffani, S. & Selvester, P., 2009). Similarly, drawing helps meet the needs of our increasingly diverse classrooms. As detailed in All children can write: Teaching strategies for helping children with autism, students who qualify for special services, such as special education resource or ESL instruction, can be see tremendous improvements in their writing if able to also draw. Communication and art are so closely connected in the brain that students with language difficulties, either disabilities or new to English, can stimulate their language center through their visual art (Buehrly, B., 2005). When students use their art to communicate ideas, it is much the same as their using words to communicate. As the research shows, these students were able to write more coherently when their writing was proceeded with drawing or painting (Buehrly, B., 2005).

Informational Essay

Hope Vaughn 3

Visual art does not have to be produced by the student, however, to impact their literacy development (Horn, M. & Giacobbe, M., 2007). Using picture books as mentor texts for writing is also a great way to ease students into the writing process. The repetition and detailed imagery found in many song picture books are excellent for teaching children new words and sentence structures (Barclay, K., 2010). Likewise, having students create their own illustrated song or poem books allows them to practice manipulating language and view writing as a sort of game. Writing is an art that is tragically lost to so many due to fear or frustration. Educators so often get distracted teaching by conventions and standards that they lose sight of why writing is important. Writing should be taught as a process, just as with art, where authors share their thoughts, dreams and ideas tell the world exactly who they are and what they believe in. With drawing and art included in the writing curriculum, students are sure to find the motivation and inspiration to be the brilliant writers each and every one of them are capable of being.

Informational Essay References

Hope Vaughn 4

Barclay, K. (2010). Using song picture books to support early literacy development. Childhood Education, 86(3), 138-145. Blood, D & Flynn, D (2002). Fifty month-by-month draw & write prompts: engaging reproducibles that invite young learners to draw and then write about topics they love all year round. Jefferson City, MO: Scholastic Professional Books. Buehrly, B. (2005). All children can write: Teaching strategies for helping children with autism. Language Arts Journal of Michigan: Vol 21(1). Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1jqjW68 Horn, M. & Giacobbe, M.E. (2007) Talking, drawing, writing: Lessons for our youngest writers. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers. Jones, C. (1962). Relationship between creative writing and creative drawing of sixth grade children. Studies in Art Education, 3(2), 34-43. Johnson, P. (1996). Page consciousness: The development of writing with illustration. Language Arts,73(7 ), 493-505. Lamott, A. (2013). Writer's block: Prevent moan and groan when you ask your child to compose sentences or invent stories. Scholastic Parents. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/writing-activities/writers-block Ray, K. W. (2010). In pictures and in words: Teaching the qualities of good writing through illustration study. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Steffani, S. &Selvester, P. (2009) The relationship of drawing, writing, literacy, and math in kindergarten children. Reading Horizons, 49(2), 125-142.

You might also like