Visual Paraphrasing of Poetry

Visual Paraphrasing introduces a method for helping students from high school through college to read poetry with more accuracy and personal involvement. Like verbal paraphrasing, sketches help the reader see what is literally described in a poem, what is not, and what is ambiguous. The technique combines traditional interpretive ends with means compatible with reader-response theory and process-oriented writing approaches. The book contains an introduction relating the technique to literary theory, for those interested in such issues. Those primarily concerned with helping students learn to read poetic language may skip to the examples, which move from the extremely simple to the sublimely complex. Examples of the technique applied to prose are also included, as are some related applications of drawing for the teaching of literature (maps, schemata of world-views, and illustration as opposed to visual paraphrase).