Graphic Representation

As a student, I hated being assigned a graphic project because I am really self-concience about my ability to draw.  I'm not necessarily the worst artist every.  It never looks unrecognizable.  But I would get frustrated when I couldn't put my imagined drawings onto paper.  It always looks so much better in my head than it does on the page.  However, I loved looking at my classmates' work and seeing everyone's different interpretations and I loved picturing what I would like to see illustrated.

Graphic representation is a great way to get students to visualize the book and make it more than just words on a page.  It also gives students a way to show their personal interpretation, which will be much easier if they are given a less restrictive medium than just an essay.  Their drawings do not have to be limited to 2-dimensions.  I enjoyed making dioramas, which were less frustrating for me than drawing. I liked using materials I found around my house to fit my interpretation of the novel.  For Herman Melville's Typee, I recreated the god the natives worship.  For the shrunken head, I used a pickled apple with a face carved into it made by one of friend's and left over from our Harry Potter party.  For the stick body, I used one of my dad's old walking sticks and covered it in a torn up shirt for the rags the god supposedly wore.  His name was Mortua Artua, but he was renamed Ammargay Odgay by my classmates, which is pig latin for Grammar God.  Although this project was not very intepretative, it made the main character's disbelief that the natives worshiped this crazy looking think more real, because it really did look ridiculous.

I would leave the project's medium and size up to my students, allowing them to choose whatever would most represent their personal interpretation.  Godwin mentions having to share his drawing of the Green Knight in his college literature class.  I would definitely encourage my students and show and explain their project in the class.  This will give them practice with public speaking and confidence to show case their own work.  It will also give the rest students many different perspectives and interpretations of a novel.