Draw Me A Story

Facilitator: Mrs. Mitali Joshi

Whether used alone or integrated with written texts, illustrations are literature on their own. The first art that most children experience is in picture books, and the first reading they do involves reading pictures instead of words. Smart illustrations of a book help a reader to perceive and imagine the story that’s being told. In many cases kids get attracted to the illustration more than the content and even those who are impatient of reading can easily get to know about the story and its features through the illustrations provided with it. A good children’s picture book has the power to take young minds off to another time and place.

“Draw Me a Story” was an interesting event for the Geckos of all grades from 1 to 5 where they not only became an illustrator but also celebrated the power of pictures and understood the concept of visual literacy. They recognized the importance of the illustrators through this event.

Grade 1 was asked to draw and illustrate the story of “the turtle and the rabbit”. Grade 2 were given a simple story “Brothers go camping” was read out loud in the class and the kids were asked to illustrate the story step wise. It was a simple story about two brothers who went to a camping trip, gathered wood, went fishing, told ghost stories around the fire and how when at night the younger brother got scared elder one calms him down. Grade 3 and 4 worked on the story “My cat” was read out loud in the class and the kids were asked to illustrate the story step wise. It was a simple story about a boy who thinks his cat is an alien because of various reasons. Grade 5 had to option to pick between 2 stories “The race”, “The monkey and the donkey”, “The fox and the crane” and “Shabhu and coco”. While they all came up with interesting drawings they also understood that how difficult it is to draw a whole story. After the event, during the reflection they agreed unanimously that illustrator’s job is as tough as a writer’s.

A few illustrations: