Visual thinking strategies, art and picture books

There are a couple of interesting articles on the School Library Journal website about encouraging children to look at and appreciate the art in picture books, based on workshops run at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art www.carlemuseum.org

Part 1 - If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s a picture book museum worth? By Wendy Lukehart -- School Library Journal, 1/1/2010 http://tiny.cc/artinpicturebookspart1

Part 2 - How do a museum’s philosophies work in a public library setting? By Wendy Lukehart -- School Library Journal, 2/1/2010 http://tiny.cc/artinpicturebookspart2

Here are a couple of short extracts from the articles :

Thumbnail Sketch of Visual Thinking Strategies VTS - from Part 1 article

The leader invites the group to take a few moments to look closely at an image and then asks these, and only these, open-ended questions:

• What’s going on in this picture?
• What do you see that makes you say that?
• What else can you find?

The leader continually paraphrases student responses, all the while increasing the accuracy of the language without making participants feel corrected, validating individual views, connecting observations, and pointing out differences of opinion.
Participants must provide visual evidence to support their interpretations.

VTS is both the name of a curriculum and a framework for looking at a single image. For much more see: www.vtshome.org To see a short video of children engaged with VTS, click on: www.vtshome.org/pages/videos

Whole Book Approach Guide - from Part 2 article

Spend time with the book before sharing it with a group ; consider how each element contributes to meaning. Use these questions as a guide to draw attention to aspects of the design and illustration that are noteworthy.

• Jacket: Think of the jacket as a poster for the book and use VTS questions. (See Part 1 of this series)
  
• Spine: Does the jacket image wrap around the spine? Consider the lettering.
  
• Cover: Is it cloth bound? Embossed? What are the colors? Why?
  
• Format: Portrait? Landscape? Square? Shaped? Why?
  
• Endpapers: How are they the visual overture for the art in the book?
  
• Front Matter: How do these pages ease you into the book?
  
• Gutter: How does the artist accommodate or use the gutter between the verso and recto pages?
  
• Typography: How are all elements of the book proper arranged on the facing pages? Consider the absence or presence of frames, the use and pacing of double and single spreads, font choices, placement of text and pictures, etc.
  
• Medium and Style: How does the artist’s choice and use of medium(s) suit the story? How does the medium generate attention to artistic elements (color, line, shape, etc.) and principles?
  

The following link offers an edited WBA reading led by Megan Lambert at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art: www.picturebookart.org/Noggin2