Visual Thinking: Philographic Images

As part of reading The Lottery by Shirley Jackson my year 8 English class investigated the construction features writers use. This led to a discussion of the themes that writers may be referring to at the time of writing or what themes we, as modern readers see in the story. After watching the video on Philographic Images and how big ideas can be compressed into a graphic image, the students created their own philographic to describe a theme from The Lottery.  Some chose to draw by hand and others created digital images. Here are some of their graphics:

All images were displayed and a class discussion allowed the students to express how they chose their theme form the story and how they designed the elements of their visual image and what it represents. This class discussion was intense as these 13 year old students talked about some very big ideas and how books are not only stories but also make us think of deep ideas that may unsettle us.

Below is a shot of our class board where the students displayed their philographics and shared their analysis layered charts and examples of how a story is constructed using examples from The Lottery.  The final outcome of this unit was a group presentation of a Book Chat show based on the ABC TV program where the ‘guests’ gave their opinions on The Lottery, its themes and how the author used construction features to effect the reader.

The Lottery

The Lottery Board

 

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