Encouraging visual storytelling. (Moving Forward).

Over the course of the last thirty years, interest in narrative art and visual storytelling has come to the fore in art education practice. It reflects the convergence of several ideas. First, there is the recognition that the narrative impulse is very compelling. Everything to a young child is a story. Second is the notion that the development of graphic narrative conventions helps children tell richer and more wonderful stories visually. For example, young Edvard Munch used many narrative strategies in his early work including developing characters, showing action, points of view, costumes, props, settings, and sequential formats not unlike comic book layouts today. The research of Brent and Marjorie Wilson and Janet Olson has done much to forward the practice of developing narrative techniques. In practice, narrative skills seem particularly useful in providing a bridge from early schematic drawing to a more flexible and dynamic language that can express emotions, action, interaction, special effects, time and weather, all in the service of story. The striking parallel between narrative visual skills and the development of story concepts in the language arts gives the encouragement of visual storytelling even more instructional value.

Narrative representation is not something just for young children. Even Edvard Munch maintained a strong narrative element throughout his adult work, creating illustrations for the books he had read in adolescence. Thus, building a vocabulary of narrative techniques, experimenting with the various ways in which different formats and materials can accommodate story, and the search for themes can be a viable thread in the K-12 curriculum.

Jerome Brunner has lent even more credibility to the significance of story. He has arrived at the conclusion that it is through story that we construct most of the meaning we get from life. We tell stories to reflect on our everyday experiences, the ordinary and the extraordinary. We are attracted to stories which are fun to tell and envision. Some come from literature, drama, music, myths, legends, and folktales. Some are reinvented, fractured, recast, or simply revisited in a fresh way. Stories can also be invented out of imaginary situations and our need to think beyond the limits of our real experiences. And some stories can come from deep within, spoken from an inner voice, a kind of dialogue with the self.

SchoolArts has been a primary source for reporting the developments in research and practice that have informed teaching through visual storytelling. The elementary teachers in the city of Providence were among the first to add a narrative thread to their curriculum. An emphasis on narrative has been a constant element in the teacher preparation program at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Janet Olson has served as a guest consultant to a study group for Narrative Art that organized a pedagogical exhibit in the spring of 2001. Thirty MICA alumni teachers submitted 300 student works for this K-12 show, which included a range of work from traditional formats to digital prints and animation. The show was organized to illustrate how narrative art is fostered through the development of vocabulary, experimentation with formats, and exploration of a variety of sources and stimuli for visual storytelling.

Today, the Center for Art Education at MICA continues to encourage visual storytelling. It has made narrative the current focus of investigation in our new Master of Arts in Art Education program. Sharon Johnson's own research into the adolescent use of narrative informs her work as the program coordinator. Here, practicing teachers return to the studio, ground themselves in narrative forms of expression, and create research studies they then test with their own students. As a central organizing theme, we have discovered that "narrative" is an extremely open-ended concept, appropriately supported by theory and enticing to pursue. All kinds of questions can be generated. Story reveals the experiential world of children to others. It makes visible the themes, issues, and concerns of young women, adolescents, urban learners, and students who live with challenges of one kind or another. Although we could organize these investigations around a number of themes, we certainly have only begun to tap the narrative impulse for all it has to offer.

Perhaps the best reason of all to pursue this form of visual expression is that it brings forth an authentic voice and gives it an artful format. In telling a story, no matter how sad, tragic, funny, moving, remarkable, or ordinary, meaning is constructed visually. In my book, that's very special.

Excerpts from the Exhibition Text

* Human beings need to tell stories. The narrative impulse begins in early childhood and lasts a lifetime.

* Parents can encourage visual storytelling by providing children with drawing materials, making time for drawing, listening, and showing interest in the unfolding narratives that emerge.

* All teachers can work in partnership to tap the narrative impulse by making visual and verbal storytelling an important dimension of the K-12 curriculum.

* Visual narratives are enhanced by a vocabulary of representational skills for creating characters and exaggerating features, depicting settings with time or weather, showing action, emotion, different points of view, and illustrating change, transformation and metamorphosis.

* Different visual forms accommodate story in different ways. Certain forms are sequential in nature while others offer story elements simultaneously. Some forms are instruments of story and drama while others are containers for story or are time-based.

* Words and images inspire each other. Students who have the opportunity to move between visual and verbal symbol systems, as it serves their needs to construct meaning, can discover the symbiotic and mutually supportive relationship between the two systems.

* Visual storytelling can come from memory, observation and experience. Narratives that draw on everyday life provide important opportunities to reflect upon and find meaning in ordinary as well as extraordinary experiences.

* Visual storytelling can come from literature and art, music and drama. Myths, legends, fairy tales, folktales, and history all provide excellent material that can be retold, recast, fractured, even reinvented.

* Visual storytelling can come from imagination. Original stories, myths, tales, and legends may emerge from speculating (what if ...?), envisioning (past, future, different worlds), and dreaming.

* Visual storytelling can come from within. Opportunities to work intuitively and reflectively allow the exploration of reactions and feelings, hopes and fears, connections and relationships, questions and concerns. Such works can reflect an interplay of the conscious with the subconscious; the intellect with the emotions.

* For some, telling stories visually becomes a passion, even an obsession, and can lead to a host of careers including illustration, cartooning, animation, filmmaking, fine art, and teaching.

Author's Note: This exhibition was organized by the Alumni Study Group for Narrative Art, Maryland Institute College of Art, Dr. Janet Olson, consultant. A Lucas Faculty Development Grant supported the activities of the study group. Amy Ruopp coordinated the show with a committee of alumni. A complete copy of the exhibition text may be obtained by contacting [e-mail] with "Exhibition Text" in the subject line.

RELATED ARTICLE: Encouraging visual storytelling: an exhibition guide for teachers and parents.

The following guide is offered to help you explore an exhibit of narrative art in which visual storytelling has been encouraged

The Narrative Impulse

One question raised by a narrative exhibit concerns the importance of storytelling--in words and images Here are some questions to help you think about the importance of story in your children's lives and your own:

* Have you listened to a young child and thought to yourself "Everything is a story!"?

* How many stories do you tell each day? In a week?

* What role does story play when you meet a friend or call someone on the phone?

* Have you tried to tell the stories of your parents' or grandparents' lives?

* Can you tell a better story using descriptive and expressive language?

* Do you enjoy embellishing a story with details and feelings?

* What might be the role of dialog in the development of visual and verbal imagery?

Building a Vocabulary

Another question raised by a narrative exhibition is how representational and expressive skills in making images might be developed Think about what skills and techniques these young people used in making their images

* What might someone need to know about drawing or making a visual image that might allow them to tell a better story, make it more expressive, include more details and feeling?

* Do you believe that only those with talent can make visual images or do you think that art-making skills can be learned and developed through good art instruction?

Matching Story to Form and Media

A wide variety of media and visual form have been used to create the artwork on display Consider how a certain form or media works with the ideas in the story and the way in which the story is told

* Are there stories that can best be told in a single image?

* Are there stories that are made special by creating a kind of container for it or framing it in a special way?

* Are there certain kinds of stories that require a sequential form?

* Are there stories that require the ability to layer and mix imagery?

Words and Images: Inspiring Each Other

Where there are examples of artworks that include text in the image or where companion pieces of images and text are presented, consider the following questions:

* If you were to tell a story, would you, your child, or others you know, start with words or an image?

* If you started with words, how might the words inspire an image?

* If you started with an image, how might the image inspire words?

* Can you imagine the value of moving back and forth between words and images?

Sources and Themes for Visual Storytelling

A major question raised by a narrative exhibition concerns how visual storytelling might begin and what sources one might draw upon for story content.

* What do you, your children, family, and friends tell stories about?

* How can ordinary experiences in everyday life be turned into extraordinary stories through words and images?

* Is it important to reflect on life-changing events and to mark them by making something special?

* What seems to capture the attention of young children?

* What seems to concern adolescents?

* Do stories grow more complex as we grow older? And do more complex stories require more complex visual form and media?

* Are there stories here that make you laugh or cry, catch your attention, move you? Which ones are they and how does the way the story is told visually make it special?

* If you had the opportunity to make a visual or verbal story, what story would you tell? What form and media might you choose?

* If you were to invite young people to put their stories into visual form, where could you start?

For more information, see Envisioning Writing, Toward the Integration of Drawing and Writing by Dr. Janet Olson, published by Heinemann Press, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Karen Lee Carroll is the graduate director for Art Education at the Maryland Institute College of Art. From 1977 to 1984 she served as the arts area coordinator for the Providence Public Schools.