Creating Mental Images Through Envisioning

As Miller (2002) mentioned, one way to deepen students' understanding of texts or to get them more involved in reading is using the strategy of making mental images. This strategy is significantly important especially when children are studying poetry. Poetry is generally a more abstract piece of literature that requires readers to be imaginative and creative in making their own interpretation in which the poem is illustrating.
In one of Miller's lessons, she read aloud several poems to her students, and asking them to "listen carefully and think about which poem creates the most vivid mental images" (pp. 80). In this activity, Miller was offering an opportunity for her students to envision the images that were created by poets, and based on their personal interpretations, they took a copy of the poem that they chose and drew a picture that went along with the poem. The whole group debriefed afterwards, as they sat closely together on the rug and shared their images and talked about their interpretations. Notice that this activity was highly subjective; there was not right or wrong in what the students have chosen or said. This activity is valuable because it fostered students to envision and construct meaning while they listen or read.

Exhibit 21
In light of this, I conducted a similar activity for the whole class. We did a shared reading on the poem called Dog, by Valerie Worth. As I finished reading aloud to the students, they read aloud back. We then stopped and discussed our favorite parts of the poem (see exhibit 23). As most students raised their hands wanting to share their thoughts, I observed that Jesse was being quiet and perhaps actively thinking about his favorite part, while Nathan was again, being more passive in the situation. Jesse then raised his hands and said, 'yeah, I think the poet is right about dogs. That's what dogs are like, cuz I have a dog too, and he drools and sleeps and does all the tricks and all.' It is evident that Jesse is relating his personal experiences and knowledge as he listened to the poem and read it on chart paper.

To continue with this lesson, I modeled a new task that they had to complete. I shared with my students about this one line that I really liked a particular line in the poem, Rope Rhyme. I said, 'This line right here, Listen to that clappety-slappedy sound, I love it. When I read this line, and then I close my eyes, it's like I am seeing and hearing kids jumping rope in front of me. And the way she describes the sound of the rope, is just so real to me. I am hearing the clappety and slappedy sound as the rope touches the ground. This kind of work is called envisioning. I am making a mental movie in my mind by thinking about the words that the poet used. I am going to write this line that I really love on this strip of paper.' As I jot down the line on the strip paper, some students got excited about this task as they raised their hands, hoping to share what they liked about the poem. I continued, 'So when you are reading today, you can do the same thing. You can envision by making a mental movie in your mind. You can do that by closing your eyes and picture what you read in your mind.'

Ediger (2003) mentioned that teachers should raise salient questions that help arouse students' interest in reading, that these questions or discussions should lead to students in developing "their feeling and aesthetic dimension of learning", as well as "providing intrinsic motivation for students to do more reading of diverse kinds of poems" (pp. 165). In the aforementioned lesson that I taught, students were given an opportunity to talk about the poem that we have learned from shared reading, then they applied the strategy of making a mental movie in their minds by envisioning to their own practice during independent reading.

Since Jesse has been more competent in the poetry unit that he has been showing more initiative in participating in shared reading, I decided to work with Nathan in a one-on-one conference. In exhibit 24, it shows that as soon as Nathan sat down at his desk, he started flipping through pages trying to skim through each poem to look for 'beautiful lines' to write. I then stopped him and explained it to him that this was not a ‘smart’ way to read poetry, because often poets use special words, or structure to convey their messages; so skimming through was not the best way to assimilate the essence of poetic writing. As we read together, Nathan gradually accepted the pace that I wanted him to read. We paused between verses and I asked him open-ended questions like ‘why do you think the poet is describing Grandpa this way?’, ‘how does this sentence make you feel? Do you like it?’ In this process, he began to think more critically and at one point was debating whether the particular line was worth jotting or not. As we continued the reading, he grew more interest in reading the poems with a more critical lens. He wrote a few quotes on post-its:

"Don't roar like a lion, act lamb-ly."
"Tunneling up his ears."

At the end of the lesson, we did a whole class share; students raised their hands to share their favorite lines. Nathan and Jesse raised their hands and shared their favorite lines that they envisioned and created a mental movie.