Literature Experience Projects

1
Literature Experience Projects

• Gerstacker Mini-Grant
• Nicki Colman
• 2008

2
The Goal The Hope

• To bring a greater understanding of the themes
  found in literature through personal / physical
  experience.
• Students who can not access the written word at
  grade level can still assimilate commonalities
  between grade level literature themes and their
  lives.

3
The What

• Materials provided through grant
• Joey Pigza
• reading series by Jack Gantos
• 8 digital Cameras
• Collage supplies
• Film developing

4
The How

• Students read the Joey Pigza series as a quick
  read, the theme of self-awareness was drawn out.
  (Joey is self described as Mr. Helpful / Wired)
• The main character traits of Joey, Andy (Pretty
  in Pink), Napoleon (Napoleon Dynamite), and
  themselves were compared in respect to
  self-awareness qualities.

5
The Culmination Collage

• The students were challenged to explore their
  world as they photographed scenes from their
  life. The scenes were framed around four
  thematic explorations self portrait, community,
  family and dreams.
• This experience provided an opportunity to engage
  photography as an art form (self- awareness and
  exploration) and to connect visual literacy to
  verbal and written communication.

6
The How cont

• American Literary Classic Walt Whitmans Leaves
  of Grass, read and discussed.
• The theory of existentialism was introduced
  through Whitman. Comparison of main characters
  were revisited and examples of existential traits
  were identified in each.