Individually Created Characters (ICI) have gotten the shaft because of all the hoopla around One Word Images (OWI). And yet the Invisibles were originally based on ICIs, not OWIs. What happened? It doesn’t matter.
But I want to at least stand up for and promote this lovely way of starting a trip around the new Star Sequence Curriculum, the one that will set fire to the textbook in the real way. In my opinion. So I will be posting some articles here this week on how to make individually created images to use as a base for non-targeted stories.
Sixth graders drew the very first Invisibles in the same hallway where Dana is now teaching in New Delhi. That was when I was there back in 2015. It takes very little to get good drawings from sixth graders.
However, if you are going to be using the Invisibles at the high school level you must be careful. Anyone who has taught high school students knows that they will not take the task seriously, and that is not a good thing because in our image-based, non-targeted curriculums the levels of excitement we see generated would never be possible without strong and compelling visuals.
And the strongest and most compelling visuals and the best stories come from ICIs and not OWIs. Not even close.
Therefore, students must be coached to make their ICIs (Invisibles) bold and colorful and to fill the sheet of paper with the image. I find it best to use larger paper, perhaps 8.5” x 17” paper. Large sheets of white card stock are even better. In the story, the student actor will be using the character like a mask and interest is heightened considerably if the image is large, simple, iconic, and easily visible from across the classroom.
The insistence that the characters be bold and iconic also levels the playing eld artistically. Since we are looking for super-simple, cartoon-like images, every child has the opportunity to achieve the level of art that makes for a good character.
Some students have amazing artistic talent but sometimes end up drawing characters that are too complex to be chosen for stories, because all the details detract from its visibility. Coach them to draw bold, iconic, mask-like characters.
(to be cont.)