Chapter
Five: Getting the Picture
In the fifth chapter of his book,
Zull shifts focus to the power of an image. He begins the chapter with a
description of how one imagine can conjure up another image. In this case, the
image of a boy putting his arm around a girl and a knowledge of clouds. Zull’s research has lead him to assert that
images are extremely critical in the journey of Brain to Mind. This chapter was
impacted me personally and professionally.
The two most impactful ideas in this chapter to me were: how we need to
start teaching the power of images at a young age, and how instructionally we
need to be mindful of the images we choose.
Zull believes images are critca to the journey of
brain to mind to be particularly true for newborns and toddlers. He believes
that we should make sure we are teaching and exposing children to images that
are impactful to their lives and meaningful to the child’s development.
One of the images that Zull feels we
should focus on with infants is a face. As a father of a young 22 month-old. I
found this section to be personally very interesting. As our son is beginning
to learn language and move from babbling to speaking it is amazing to see what
words he picks up and words he struggles with. Until reading this section, I
assumed it was almost random. But, now looking around our house it makes sense.
One of the first words our son really learned was “ball.” We have lots of balls in all sorts of shapes
and sizes, and a lot of his books have pictures of balls in them. Any round sphere is now a ball. But he
probably associated that image as important.
Furthermore, we have always been good about learning facial expressions
and showing him faces of our extended family. It is always a nice party trick
when he shows up to a family gathering and can say someone’s name after not
seeing them in a long time. Zull would probably say that he saw that we were
excited when he could see the image and recall its name and he felt rewarded
therefore he wanted to repeat the process numerous times.
As for my professional life, I found
myself wondering about how I use images in my classroom. More specifically what
am I using the images for? What is there purpose. Zull states in the section,
“Being Mindful” on page 136 that images should be: complex, cause genuine
reflection, and are personal. In my classroom I can think of two major uses of
images, one for vocabulary, and one for close reading.
Every few weeks, I give my students
a cumulative vocabulary quiz. It is essentially a review test of previous
quizzes. In order to review I play a review game that combines Pictionary and
Charades. The class is divided into teams and each team sends up a volunteer
and the student then must either act out the word or draw the word. The
students really do get into the game, even though they do not win a prize.
However, now I understand the benefits of the game. The students are
remembering the actions or drawings of the volunteers and associating it with
the word. So later when they see a word like, “bequeath” the student associates
the word with a student “dying and giving me his wallet as a ghost”. Much like how Zull associates the names of
clouds with young love. The images created by the students are complex, and
personal. They remember the image over a rote definition.
The other common way I incorporate
images into my curriculum is when I teach and reteach close reading. I find
students learn better when they understand the “why” not just the “what” so to
teach why we close read I like to use images and movie clips. I use old
“Highlights” magazine hidden images pictures throughout the year as a warm-up
activity. I use the image to reinforce the idea in students that they may see
the picture but miss the details, and when we close read we need to understand
all the details in the picture. On one hand, it is fun, not time consuming, and
my students enjoy trying to find the hidden pictures. On the other hand,
students are making the connection to “re-reading” the picture and “re-reading”
the text.
An activity I also use that goes hand-in-hand with the
“Highlights” pictures is I like to show movie clips from classic movies and
have students watch multiple viewings of them and watch as the students’
understanding of the movie grows. One particularly powerful clip comes from
“North By Northwest” an Alfred Hitchcock movie. In the film, there is a scene
in which the main character shoots a woman in a restaurant at Mt. Rushmore.
After the first “read” of the movie I ask basic questions such as, “Who is the
good guy?” and “Where are they?”. Without fail most students think the hero is
the bad guy, because he shoots a woman, and they are just at a restaurant. Mt.
Rushmore is prominently featured in the background taking up almost half the
screen and yet my students miss it. So
like Zull suggested, I pause it, and let students digest what they are seeing.
Even without the context of the whole movie students begin to see that the
setting of Mt. Rushmore must be crucial to the setting of the movie. I have found this activity to be very successful
in showing students why you re-read and how even good readers miss important
details the first time. The images
become a way for my students to understand the “why” of close reading and not
just the “what”. They remember not seeing the hidden object at first, or the
giant president’s head in the background when they read and know that is why
they should re-read they may have missed something.
After reading Zull, I firmly believe that I should
double down on these practices next year. I use to know they were impactful but
not why they were impactful. After reading this section I now understand why
students enjoy these activities and why they are learning from them. I am going to challenge myself to try to
incorporate more images (both mine and student created) into my lessons next
year. The power of images is something I am not tapping into that I feel could
positively impact my students’ growth in the classroom.
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