Craft Lesson #1

CREATING MENTAL IMAGES

RESOURCE MATERIALS:
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Pencil, crayons or markers
Paper
Notebook

DISCUSSION
It is sometimes hard for students to create a mental image of a story. A mental image is an experience that significantly resembles the experience of perceiving some object, event, or scene, but that occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses. If children can create a mental image of the story they will increase their overall understanding of the story (comprehension).

HOW TO TEACH IT (1st or 2nd grade)
I want to talk to you today about creating mental images from stories we read or hear. By creating a mental image of the story you are experiencing something that is not present to your senses. In the story named Where the Wild Things Are the child takes his imagination to where the wild things are. I want you all to listen carefully, let your imagination run free, and think of mental images that arise from your listening. Then create a story based on the images that you come up with while I am reading you the story. I want you to put these mental images of what you think is going on in the story on paper and add a caption or a written explanation of what is going on in the picture. Some possible questions that you can ask yourself when you are trying to create mental images of the story may include: What do you think that looks like? What do you see in your mind? What image pops into your head when you hear that? We will then arrange these pictures in a notebook that will be placed in the classroom library to help you remember how to create mental images of stories.
By creating mental images of the story, you are becoming a good reader. Good readers make mental images in their heads as they are reading. Creating mental images will help you better understand what is going on in the story.