We learn to use our hands more and more when we build one word images with our kids. What does that mean? It means that in the same way that a sculptor puts her hands on clay and then steps over to the big lump of clay that she is working with, so also do we step over to the words we need (question words, words in lists on walls, point and pause words on the whiteboard, etc.), put our hands on them, figuratively bring them to the growing image, and craft our image right there in front of the kids. Building a successful one word image is very much like sculpting something out of clay, only the clay is the words.
This feels exaggerated to us but is not. Not until working with teachers this summer did I become aware of the importance of this physical motion of taking words/clay from the walls/whiteboard and walking over to the prominent space directly in front of the students where the “sculpture” sits. We taught each other how to do it in the recently completed SF and Portland workshops. When we slowly and with happiness in our hearts “sculpt” the image with our precise and somewhat exaggerated hand motions right there in front of them, our students are able to “see” much more clearly what we as a group are building there in the realm of the imagination that is our classroom. It is our precise hand motions and and exaggerated hand motions make the image much easier to see.
Thus, my new definition of myself as not a teacher (it is impossible to teach a language) but as “a person who turns sound into meaning” can be extended now into “a person who turns sound into meaning with my hands”.
This idea of sculpting a word image with one’s hands may also apply to creating an entire story. Kids need to “see” our words more than many of us allow them, and one way to make that happen is to be more expressive/flowery when we work in a slow and measured and happy way with our”clay”.
[ed. note: the reason we worked so much with one word images in the summer workshops is because of the idea generated in Agen from the CI artist and teacher Kathrin Shechtman in Germany. Her suggestion that we use one word images to create characters for the Invisibles emergent target protocol has proven to be one of the great ideas of the summer.)