Art through Literacy Process Memo

Kara Giacomantonio

Professor Lauren Rinke

Writing 150

October 12, 2012

Art through Literacy Process Memo

How did you become literate? This is the question our class was asked before starting the assignments to come. First, we started by making a timeline of all the things that helped us to become literate, in search of a theme or major event. The most logical thing I started with was my mother teaching me my colors. She made it fun by using play dough and finger paints. The hardest part about making the timeline, for me, was remembering the details. There were a few major things that stuck out to me, but other than that it was kind of difficult to remember many things. While creating the timeline, I realized that everything that had to do with my literacy development had some kind of connection to art, and I never really thought of that before. The reoccurring theme was definitely art and having that theme made it very easy to write about. Creating the timeline reminded me of my love for art and made me want to start painting and reading about artists again. It made me feel like I wanted to get back to a simpler time in my life, and now I think I’m going to renew my relationship with art.  

Narrowing down a focus for my narrative was very easy, once I established my theme I focused in on it. As I began to write my narrative I sort of just started in chronological order, with three specific examples that directly connected with my theme, art. I didn't really have to do any pre-writing because I like to just start writing and let my ideas flow. Focusing on how my theme related to each event made writing my narrative a lot easier. Having a theme made the narrative a clear and very detailed story. The peer review helped me a lot. My partner, Khadija, picked out spots where I could expand and add more detail to my paper so it would be a little longer and sound even better, which was very helpful. She pointed out a few things that needed a little clarification. Overall, she truly helped me to strengthen my paper and without her second pair of eyes it definitely would have been difficult for me to add to my paper all by myself.

When I finally finished up my narrative and made the final changes I already began to think of a couple pictures and things that I would use for my animoto video. Although most of the pictures were easy to pick out, fitting in the perfect text slides to go with it was kind of difficult. It was quite a challenge for me to fit in the sentences that I already had written in my paper into the slides. I basically had to rewrite almost every one of the sentences that I picked to fit in the limited space, which is a lot different from how I would usually tell a story. Personally though, I didn’t mind having less detail in text and using pictures instead. I love adding pictures to my ordinary papers to clarify things and make it more personal. I enjoy seeing pictures and things when reading or being told a story because I think it makes it real and more interesting.

Making the animoto video was fun for me, overall. I really liked being able to use pictures to tell a story and not just have to use plain old boring text. My peer review partner generally picked the 15 best sentences from my paper. I did have to shorten them so much so that in essence, I ended up creating new sentences. My strategy to shortening them was to just concentrate on the main idea and try to get my point across. Shortening them helped me to focus on the detail of my paper, which improved my style of writing. I essentially used three main passages or events as emphasis for my animoto video.

The images I used helped to not only fill in detail when I couldn’t fit in the text, but also to compliment my text slides. I used a picture of the color wheel to represent how I learned the basics of art in my first grade art class since I couldn’t fit a long description. Then, I also used a picture of one of my favorite books on O’Keeffe right after I mentioned it in a text slide. I chose pictures that were both personal and from the web. I tried really hard to make them all have a meaningful purpose. For example, I had a text slide that said “Art set my path in life,” so I used a picture of a painting of a path that was created by Monet. I had personal pictures of me as a child painting and coloring that added a nice touch to my video also. Other pictures, like the cover of one of my favorite books and the animal cell diagram, required me to get them on the internet. They all helped me to tell my story better because they added visual detail that you normally would not get from just reading any other narrative. I went for a classical song for my video because I love that kind of music and think that it added an artsy and classy feel. Chopin—Nocturne No. 2 In E Flat Major went with my theme very well. It demonstrated how art had a major impact on my literacy by actually getting to hear the song.

I have watched my video multiple times already since I posted it because I love it so much! Honestly, I don’t think I would have changed anything major. I might have added more detail if the video could have been a little longer. Also, I might have changed the background theme. There wasn't many to choose from so I chose the most logical one that fit my theme the best. All my classmates gave me great feedback and really enjoyed my video. The only thing, if any, they said to do differently was to add something here or there. Overall, I really enjoy all the steps of the project; it was a great experience because I have never created a narrative like that before.