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National Museum of Women in the Arts

Colorful Words and Telling Images

A wide and narrow book opened to display pages with the word FRAGILE in red block letters. A red tassel hangs down the center of the book and the cover is wrapped with wire mesh.
Art, Books, and Creativity
Grade Level
3 to 5 6 to 8 9 to 12
Subject Area
English/Language Arts Visual Art
Download Lesson 9

ABC Lesson 9 Overview

One 45-minute period. Students will explore the relationships between images and words by looking at illustrated children’s books to see how illustrations and texts can relate to and strengthen one another. Students will choose descriptive words or phrases from their journals and create images that help communicate their meaning.

Instructional Objectives

Visual Arts

Students will:

  • Understand how images and illustrations communicate ideas and express emotions.
  • Explore how visual imagery and descriptive language work together to deepen meaning, using illustrated children’s books as examples.
  • Create images that illustrate descriptive words and ideas from their own journals.

Writing

Students will:

  • Identify and use descriptive words to communicate ideas and express emotions.
  • Understand how descriptive language creates mental images and brings words to life.
  • Explore how words and images complement and strengthen one another to deepen meaning.

Instructional Plan

Observe

Papier-mâché head covered in clippings of pages from James Joyce's novel "Ulysses." In varying shades of green, the head includes curly, lettered strips for hair and wide and classic-Greek-style eyes under arched eyebrows.
Friederun Friederichs, Ulysses, 2009; Paper, papier-mâché artist’s book, 14 x 10 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Paula Chattin; © Friederun Friederichs

Introduce this lesson by asking students to think of words that create vivid pictures in their minds. What are some examples of descriptive or “juicy” words?

Ask students if they think the following words are juicy and, if not, have students replace the original words with other words that are more visual: cold, loud, nice, squishy, and good. What images do these words bring to mind?

Choose a food (pizza, mango, cauliflower) or a place (home, bus, cafeteria) and ask students to come up with visual words to describe it. How do these words help them “see” what is being described? Tell students they will explore how images and words work together to communicate and create images that express the meaning of words, phrases, or sentences they have written.

Describe

A weathered book with a cracking spine is filled with collages made up of mythological and scientific imagery.
H. Terry Braunstein, Egg-plant, 2002; Altered sculpted book and photomontage created from images found in magazines, 9 x 6 x 2 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of the artist; © Terry Braunstein

Read a short passage with lots of descriptive, visual words from an illustrated children’s book. Do not show them the illustrations. Read the passage again and then ask some students to describe what they “saw” as you read. Which words from the passage were most descriptive or visual? Show students the illustration in the book so they can see how the illustrator imagined the scene. How do the students’ visions compare to each other’s and to the illustrator’s? How are they similar or different?

Discuss

Give students some time to look through the illustrated books borrowed you gathered and see the many ways words and images can work together. Point out some examples you think are interesting and ask students to share any that they especially like.

Create: Word Images

Supplies

  • Student journals
  • Student’s art exploration sheets, for reference
  • Pencils, crayons, colored pencils, markers, watercolor paints, and brushes
  • Drawing paper

Activity

Choose Your Word(s)

Give students a few minutes to review their journals and quick writes. Have each student choose a word, phrase, or sentence they think is “juicy.” Students can either circle the words or copy them down on a clean sheet of paper to refer to as they work on their illustrations.

Illustrate Your Word(s)
  1. Have students decide which art materials they will use.
  2. To create an image for the words or sentences they chose, they can begin with a quick, preliminary sketch or they can begin creating their final illustrations. The illustrations can be realistic or abstract.
  3. Have students look at the words while they work to make sure the images express the words’ meanings or feelings.
  4. Suggest that students include the words somewhere on the page. They can refer back to the illustrated books for different ways the text can be placed on the page.

Reflect

When students have finished, display their work in the classroom and give them a few minutes to look at each other’s images. Ask a few students to explain how their images and words relate. Ask other students to make observations about their classmates’ work. Have students use sentence stems, such as “I notice….” or “I wonder….” when talking about each other’s work.

Vocabulary

Explore NMWA’s list of vocabulary terms for a consistent description of visual arts concepts and definitions of art terms.

View the Comprehensive Vocabulary List , opens in new tab 



Descriptive words

Descriptive words describe how things feel, sound, taste, look, or smell in a way that creates vivid images in our minds.