How are mental images built?

I have started a unit on storytelling with our 2nd/3rd grade class, and we are already off on a roll. For myself, I am very interested in how the children can help me understand what difference telling a story makes from reading it - what the difference in experience is, and means for them. However, I know they will have questions of their own...

To begin our focus, I told the story of Beauty and the Beast, and asked the children to consider what stood out to them the most about the experience of hearing that story. They worked with drawing, writing, painting and watercolor to give voice to that response. What resulted was a beautiful array of images from the story. Many of them talked about the mental images they had of the story, a term they have used before in reading and writing. These images ranged, but a good chunk of them depicted either the Beast or the scene where Beauty's father first comes across the Beast's castle.

At first, I was a bit frustrated, because I thought they were responding too much to the story, and not enough to the experience. However, a conversation with a colleague made clear to me that the mental images were the most significant part of the experience. If I want to know more about the experience they were having, I must allow them to name the part of the experience they know, and then dive deeper into that.

So, our next step was to consider: How are mental images built? How do we make them in our minds, and what's happening for us as listeners as these mental images from a story come to us?

Here are some of the ideas different children expressed:

There are two ways - how the teller who tells the story describes what’s happening. If they actually say I walked into summer and all the leaves were this color, then it really gives a detailed image. It also depends on the person who’s making the actual mental image, because they need to listen to the person telling the story, otherwise they don’t get it.

For me, mental images could be called portable art, because, I mean, if you look around, you can always see something, and that’s an image, really. And I guess when you hear something that triggers it, but you don’t see anything that’s related to it, then you have to use your mind and the words kind of give it detail. You need to not use your hands, but use your mind, and use it in a different way than controlling your hands like in a painting or drawing or coloring, but in another way, to do it itself.

I think it’s millions of little shapes in your brain. When you hear something, your eyes may have seen it on TV or something, or they can just make it up. If they saw it, it’s easier to make the image, because they’ve already seen it, and already have a clear image of what it is. So I think it’s millions of little shapes coming together to fit into this one image.

Well, I think when you hear a word, for example, chicken pox, you think: What do chicken pox look like? And your mind thinks. Your mind is a separate being, but who does a lot of the thinking. You and your mind together - you’re the one who has to hear it, and then your mind helps you think about it.

As I read over these theories, I remember how complex the human brain is. My favorite part about the conversation I got to have with these students was that we were talking about something that brain scientists can't completely explain! The students were researching with me by reflecting on their experiences and noticing things about their own thinking.

Where to now?

Our next step, after studying our experience of listening to a story, is to move towards identifying a story we want to tell. I don't want to do anything with these thoughts on mental images quite yet, until the children move into the process of practicing how to make those same mental images possible for their audience. I wonder what else they will have to say then? How will mental images of the stories they tell help them make their stories their own??

Updates soon ...