Visualizing Poetry through Doodling

See 21st Century Teaching and Learning in Visual Arts

Taking inspiration from the TED Talk on Doodling, I am asking you to:

1. Copy via hand either:

Billy "Sonnet" by Billy Collins

or

Shakespeare's sonnet #18 "Shall I Compare Thee..."
See earlier blog post.

2. And doodle!
Draw simple pictures to the imagery in the poem in the margin or embed imagery in the text itself.

Be creative - and feel free to use markers or crayons.
I would like to select the top three to post in our classroom.




Consider these questions:

How does your understanding of the poem influence your doodling?

How does imagery influence tone?

If you haven't listened to the TED Talks on Shakespeare's sonnet, I encourage you to do so.

If you were interested in the doodling TED Talk, check out the longer talk when you have some downtime. She offers helpful hints if you feel you are not much of an artist.

Plus think about this advice:

Sunni Brown, in her master list of visual notetaking tips and truisms, focuses on the very foundation of the art: listening. She writes about the importance of picking out metaphors and similes, descriptor cues and paying attention to the narrative build. But most importantly, she says, you need to turn all other voices off: 

“Suspend your own frame of reference. Focus externally. Turn off your ego. Quit thinking everything revolves around your opinion. Give the stage in your head to someone else!”