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Classroom Materials

Andrea Davis

Third Mind: Creative Writing Through Visual Art

Reviewed by Andrea Davis, Stonington High School, Pawcatuck, Connecticut, USA.

Any time I spy a new book from Teachers & Writers Collaborative I know that I am in for a treat as well as a treasure trove of new teaching ideas. This collection of essays does not disappoint. Like those of most of the T&W publications, the authors expect the reader to have more than a passing interest in the topic and to want more than a “what to do on Monday morning” approach to teaching. In other words, this collection of essays does a fine job of combining the theory of using art in the teaching of writing with ample specifics on how to do so. You'll have to do some careful reading to mine the gold from these pages, but it is well worth your time.

The aim of this book, as the editors state in their introduction, is to “unite these two powerful allies—creative writing and visual art—in the classroom” (p. xv). Lest anyone still separate “creative” writing from other types of writing, rest assured that the editors include essays on writing poems as well as nonfiction. I, for one, subscribe to the belief that all writing is creative, and that if students are eager and involved with the writing process, their work will be the richer for it.

The visual arts have long been a resource for stimulating writing, though mainly in elementary classrooms. This book spans kindergarten through a first-year college composition course. The editors, Tonya Foster and Kristin Prevallet, give a historical account of the connection between writing and the visual arts harking back to Plato's time. Ekphrasis is the Greek term for writing that takes its inspiration from visual art. The “third mind” of the title is credited to the author William Burroughs, who, according to Anne Waldman's essay “Going on Our Nerve,” used the term to describe the connection or camaraderie when collaboration “transcends individual ego” (p. 132). Waldman uses art prints or visits to museums and asks students to respond to a series of questions in writing before looking at the title and artist's name. She then asks them to write a poem using the title of the artwork as the first line. Another fine idea she shares is to take a “William Burroughs Walk” during which students are to “note everything blue (or red or white or green or gold), and make a list” (p. 140) which can be used for future writing.

Although 19 of these 20 essays include specific teaching ideas for writing and the visual arts, there is also a thought-provoking essay by the cultural critic bell hooks. This African American writer explores the tension that exists in black culture over the identification with and enjoyment of the visual arts, specifically those displayed in museums and galleries. A white teacher at her newly integrated high school encouraged hooks's early desire to become an artist. Her family did not support her: “They told me I had to be out of my mind thinking that black folks could be artists—why, you could not eat art” (p. 33). She explores just what factors alienate blacks from identifying with visual art: “We must look, therefore, at other factors that render art meaningless in the everyday lives of most black folks” (p. 35). She proposes a revolution of sorts that would set free the imaginations of black people to experience art and “enhance our understanding of what it means to live as free subjects in an unfree world” (p. 39).

In Pamela Freeze Beal's “Drawing a Line: Making the Connection Between Literature and Art,” the author describes having students create art in response to reading major works of literature. She has her secondary students create a mosaic of the story of Gilgamesh as well as a pop-up version. Her “Literary Themes in Silhouette” is an activity in which students create a silhouette backdrop of a main scene and characters from a literary work. Beal believes that having students generate art in response to reading deepens their understanding of the work.

In “Conversations Beyond the Gallery: Teaching Art and Expository Writing to College Students,” Scott Herndon and Kristin Dombek describe how they bring students beyond the clichéd response to art to “the kind of aesthetic experience that might lead them to new discoveries about art, writing, their world, and themselves” (p. 144). By alerting us to the sometimes suffocating atmosphere of art museums and galleries in which we usually feel watched and listened to, and therefore judged, the authors make clear the necessity of bringing students through three stages to the final essay writing for true creative interpretation. The first stage is a “robust” nonacademic discussion about the work of art. The second phase, or threshold moment, is when students “find themselves between observation and interpretation” (p. 147). Students are then pushed to write questions rather than declarative sentences in response to the art. The third, and final, phase is a free write that explores students' “personal relationship to the artwork” (p. 148) in a fictional piece that uses three or four aspects of the work of art to create mood, setting, or an experience of the artwork. These teachers encourage a personal relationship with an artwork by breaking down the traditional walls of separation between art and the viewer prevalent in the museum environment.