Joyce Valenza Ph.D

PicLits: Visually inspiring creative writing

Several folks from my Twitter network were talking about PicLits today, so I thought I'd take a look. 

(By Terry Friedlander, Founder & Creative Head of State, of PicLits.com)

This creative writing site allows users to

match beautiful images with carefully selected keywords in order to inspire you. The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture.

Users have the choice of dragging and dropping words from their parts-of-speech categories (nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, etc.) or working freestyle (writing without a prompted word list) as they select visual background inspiration from an array of powerful images that displays as a slide show across the top border.  The drag and drop feature may help reinforce grammar lessons.  Pull-down menus offer options to capitalize and change word forms.

PicLits may be saved, shared with the community, rated, emailed, and embedded into other 2.0 apps.

Instructional support for site takes the form of three mini-lessons areas: Write It; Rhyme It; and Master It.

The impressive selection of Master It lessons includes:

• How to Read a Poem

• What is Poetry?

• Traditional and Contemporary Poetry

• Types of Poetry: Descriptive Poetry

• Types of Poetry: Blank Verse

• Types of Poetry:Formal Verse

• Figurative Language: The Anatomy of a Metaphor/Simile

• Figurative Language: Metaphor, Simile, Personification and Metonymy

• Figurative Language: Allusion, Symbol, and Apostrophe

• Figurative Language: Irony, Poetry, and Imagery

• Right Words, Right Order: Poetry and Connotations

• What is lost in translation?

I'll be sharing this tool with secondary language arts teachers and introducing the free-style approach with our world language teachers. 

I can see PicLit being used simply as a back-to-school ice breaker, but more formally to introduce various poetry and creative writing units.  Secondarily, the results will fill your classroom or library with posters displaying your students' creativity.

Posted by Joyce Valenza Ph.D on August 31, 2008 | Comments (2)