SOLSC #3 The storyteller artists

I am posting every day during March as part of the annual "Slice of Life" Challenge for Two Writing Teachers.  Check out their website for lots more reflections on teaching.

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Over the past couple of weeks, the children have been working on paper collages to tell a story (just like you know who - Ezra Jack Keats, our author study focus).

Preschoolers love, love, love all manner of gluing projects and we pretty much have the glue out every day.  Glue sticks are always available at the writing table - you never know when you want to add special paper details to a card or letter you are writing. We frequently use liquid glue, either with brushes or individual squeeze bottles. Yes, gluing a paper collage is pretty ordinary and easy stuff.

However, I really didn't want these to be "make and take," with the children quickly gluing tiny papers all over a large sheet and, right away, taking it home.

I wanted them to work like an artist -
to make the beautiful papers,
to cut the beautiful papers,
to create images with these papers.

I wanted them to work like an artist -
imagining,
beginning,
reflecting,
revisiting,
modifying,
extending,
persisting.

I wanted them to work like an artist -
to create it over time,
with significance and meaning.

What happens when we ask young children to delve deeply into something? 

Beautiful things happen.

Akhil's collage

The children created special papers using a variety of painting and coloring techniques. Then, these were cut into smaller pieces. The children worked with papers of various weight and textures - cardboard, cardstock, and other. A family gifted us a bag full of picture book jackets and we spent a couple of days cutting special papers from these - beautiful pieces for characters and settings. The children drew characters on small pieces of paper in the writing center. Each child chose a large piece of their own process art to be the background of their story picture. As the children worked with scissors, glue, and these special papers, I had lovely discussions with them about who would be in their stories, where their stories might take place, and what would that look like with papers. Details were added to the artwork using markers and pastels. The children dictated stories to me and revisited the collages, adding more details. Sometimes they changed the story, because the artwork took them in a new direction. Additional glue collages were made with leftover, "extra" pieces - and often this would lead to still more details being added to the original artwork.

These children worked like artists.

Although I had the expectation that each child would create a collage and share a story to accompany the collage, I didn't stand over them and force them to work on these. These activities were available for large stretches of time, over many days, giving the children lots of flexibility in their work. The children entered, worked, and went away to do other things, over and over, listening to their inner voice, their own motivation. Their interest would ebb and flow, depending on the day. This flexible environment allowed  the children to motivate one another. I particularly loved seeing children standing alongside classmates who were working on their collages, both the observer and the artist absorbed in the creative process.


These children worked like artists.

I wondered aloud to the children,
Do you think Ezra Jack Keats wrote his story first and then created the pictures, or created the pictures and then wrote the story?
I find Ezra Jack Keats' artwork so compelling, I wonder  - did he start with these and then create the story?
I don't know.
Which comes first for an author/illustrator?
I don't know.

In my classroom, I am amazed at how storytelling seemed to strengthen the child's engagement in the artwork and, vice versa, how the process of making the artwork seemed to expand and enliven the storytelling. 

Because I find each child's collage story so unique and special, I'm going to share one child's project each day for the next many days, at the end of my daily slice. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do!

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(A daily share by a preschooler, in their own words)

A Story Collage by Ada

Once upon a time, there was a little house that lived on a hill. It did so well and couldn’t be sold for anything. But people lived inside it. One night, a turtle was at the top of the sea and following a light from the moon. But it was not from the moon, it was from a bat! A bat belonged to somebody that had a necklace around it, and it shone a light around it. It was a special bat, it could see inside the dark because of the light. One day, a girl looked inside the necklace and she saw special kinds of buttons that if you step on them you can see all the parts of the world. She took four balloons and started going out her window, and when the bat wasn’t looking, she took the necklace. The bat wanted to go forward, but it went backward. If the girl took it off her, then she would go backward. The necklace helped the bat always go forward. The girl gives the necklace back to the bat and the bat starts going forward again. And she starts going all the way back to her bed. The End