Illustrations from Children's Literature

It is a fact that writing skills are considered as the most important skills among the teachings of the English teachers.BUt is is desperate that most of the teachers guide the students wrongly for writing some uninteresting and repetitive writings which are mind numbing.The papers or themes generally all seem quite robotic. What students actually learn is to write a formulaic paper that, while correct, does not interest either the student or the reader. Readers of College Entrance Exams and SAT essays readily complain that the papers they read would put anyone to sleep. If a paper seems creative or the writer seems to have a voice, the readers tend to give the writer a higher score. What to do? What to do?

Teaching creativity in writing often seems too difficult or abnormal to many English teachers. Other English teachers work hard to teach their students to write well but at the same time write creatively. There are numerous ways to help students develop creativity. One great way to help students write more creatively is to allow them to devise stories from illustrations from children's literature. Before you scream that high school students would balk at writing stories derived from illustrations from children's literature, think Harry Potter. He is as popular with high school students as he is with younger children. These creative writing assignments would not take too much time and would stimulate creativity.

The creative writing assignments need not take too much time. The first step in the process is for the teacher to choose several really interesting illustrations. If the teacher has young children or has collected children's books over the years, finding great illustrations is not that difficult. Used book stores might be another great place to get inexpensive books. Teachers can use the same books year after year and add a few if they wish.

Choosing which illustrations to use isn't difficult. The illustration should be full of life, include several interesting characters, and portray some action. Most any children's book illustrations would work well. Another idea is to ask students to bring a children's book from home if they still have them.

Each week when it's creative writing time, the teacher will pass the illustrations around the room. When the student gets his illustration, he should start the creative process. The instructions might be to write a paragraph about what is happening in the illustration from the point of view of one of the characters. Another idea is to have the student write a simple paragraph describe the illustration to a blind person. There are countless ways to make this creative writing process fun.

Because the high school English curriculum is already overloaded with requirements, having the students write paragraphs won't take much time away from the class period. The creative writing might even become a short homework assignment. Making the writing fun helps to encourage students to do these assignments. While creative writing isn't a complete solution to the dearth of good high school writing skills, the process certainly couldn't get any worse than it is now. Teaching creativity can only help. Using illustrations from children's literature may even ignite some students to try their hand at writing or drawing themselves.

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