I was convinced that the benefits of art journaling could be extended to my creative writing class students as well and we spent some time producing pages of colourful art journal pages. The process of working in this way can be very liberating for exam-oriented children who are seeking to free their creative spirit. Art journaling has given my students opportunities to play in a non-judgemental and positive environment ...
In the lesson that followed this picture above, the kids had no problem choosing appropriate words to accompany their colourful images which absorbed all their attention for a whole hour at a time during the production process.
Then finally, when I judged that my teens were ready and calm to face some story writing, they each produced a short story that went with these wanted posters** (an earlier abandoned project due to struggling with story ideas). The words of the stories are on the paper that was used to collage the background of the posters. It took a while to get to this stage, but I am very happy that each child here had a chance to experience creating a new and exciting story in their very own way, through art journaling.
**an idea taken from 'Gunslingers and Outlaws' by Patty Palmer on Deep Space Sparkle
