The Power of a Picture

Last week, I got to take one of my ELA classes to a local university for some college fun! The idea was for students to get a little taste of the college experience. We met some awesome professors and took some tours of a few interesting places around campus.

One of the places we were lucky enough to visit was the campus art gallery. There were two exhibitions taking place in the gallery we were able to get a private tour of both. One of the exhibits featured work by the Wood Engravers Network. There were 60 intricate prints for us to check out and the kids really loved the experience.

At one point, I had everyone take out their Writer’s Notebook and sit in front of picture that inspired them. Then, for 15 silent minutes, the kids wrote a story about their picture.

This may have been 15 of my most favorite minutes of my teaching career! All you could hear were pencils scratching on the page. They couldn’t wait to share their stories when we got back to school on Monday 🙂

Ah, the power of Writer’s Notebook!!

Anyway, this got me thinking about how great pictures can inspire great writing. So I thought I’d share some of my favorite pictures from around the Internets with you so you can use them in your classroom. In no particular order, here are some pictures that my middle schoolers have enjoyed over the last few months… spooky, strange, and unexpected really get their pencils moving!!

What gets your students in the writing mood? I’d love to hear from you!

Happy Teaching (and Writing)!!