2. Postcards: Inside-out

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For students who are not yet able to write a full story, the exercise can be done orally as a narrative. For weak writers, the writing is still possible because no one sees it. The writer reads her work aloud and keeps it. For advanced students, this exercise can lead to a small research assignment based on looking up information in the library about the artist.


* Set out a selection of postcards of museum paintings.
* Ask students to choose a card they like.
* Ask them to pretend that they are the character (or one of the characters) in the painting. Some questions to consider:

  • Why are you there?
  • What are you doing?
  • How do you like the setting - your clothes, the landscape, the objects around you?
  • What is happening outside the frame of the picture?

* Ask them to use some of the information they have just discovered to write a story about their characters.

* Once everyone has a story, ask the group to form a large circle, and ask for volunteers to share their stories, passing the picture around the circle as they read. No one is forced to read, but usually many want to.

Variations:

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This exercise was adapted from an assignment series developed by Joseph Trimmer at Ball State University, presented at The Conference on College Composition and Communications in March 1994.


  • The exercise can be more focused if you choose pictures around a particular theme. For example, I have chosen a set of pictures by Frida Kahlo of women suffering. One could do this with such themes as children, family, joy or courage.
  • In a mixed gender group, you can offer paintings of men and women and ask the men to choose pictures of women and vice versa. This leads to some very interesting constructions of meaning.

Another way of using the visual, this assignment calls on students' observation skills and imagination. I have not yet found a group that did not get into it with delight. Students who normally write as little as possible are often so caught up that they have to be stopped after 20-30 minutes. The stories are amazing: some are pure fantasy; some are reflections of self; some are mirrors of popular soap opera plot lines. The mark of excitement is that every time I have done this exercise, the students always ask to keep the postcard.

This assignment involves you starting and maintaining a collection of museum postcards. They are inexpensive and when you use single copies in class, there is no problem with copyright. Museum gift shops will often send you selected postcards if you order and prepay for them from a catalogue of their holdings. Find the addresses of museums in centres closest to you. The Ontario Gallery of Art is one museum which will mail postcards. If these postcards are not readily accessible in your area, you can order them from museum shops in large cities.
(There is a list of sources on page 209).

An alternative to postcards is a collection of graphic greeting cards with compelling pictures and little or no text. These cost more than postcards, but you can ask friends and family to save used ones and you choose the ones that you think will work best.

Additional materials: Many of the materials are simply "found" in homes, museums, book stores, etc. Watch for remaindered art calendars around the end of March each year. You can often pick up , 2 first-quality reproductions for as little as $2 to $3.


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