Back in October, our 3rd graders spent time studying the illustrations of Jerry Pinkney.  They paid close attention to how Pinkney told the story through his illustrations in preparation for a field trip to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta to see the exhibit Witness: The Art of Jerry Pinkney.  You can read more about that here and here.

Over the past few weeks in art, students have been working with the text of a folktale to create their own visual interpretations of the text.  Mrs. Foretich, the art teacher, spent a lot of time exploring and researching the vocabulary within the stories with the students so that they would be able to paint an accurate interpretation.  Each class chose and different folktale and each student in the class was assigned a piece of text from the story.

Once the paintings were ready, Mrs. Foretich organized them in the order of the story and gave them to me.  Students came in small groups to record the text for each illustration on the iPad.  We used iMovie to put all of the clips together.

This past week, third grade held a parent breakfast where families were able to come to a viewing of the final products.  They were also uploaded to Youtube for families who were unable to attend.

You can enjoy their visual interpretations below.  It was fun to watch the students take on an artists eye and think like a published illustrator thinks.  Often, illustrators receive the text to a story with no other feedback.  It is up to them to take these words and translate them into illustration.  This project gave students a better understanding of the fun and the challenges of this process.