Chapter 6: Creating Mental Images

First an update:  I have tried the word schema in my classroom also! I have felt like a "better" teacher, by being able to read students great books that they can make connections to!  They have loved the books that were suggested in our book and have been able to use their schema to make connections.  My next step is to identify good connections.

This chapter goes beyond schema and has students creating mental images.  Miller begins with think-alouds to show her students how to create the images and make the text  "come alive."  She has the students lay down and put a thumbs up when they create an image.  She asks her students to tell her what they think about creating mental images.  I love how she asks their opinion and it is great to hear what they say.  

One of our favorite parts of this chapter was when Miller discussed that schema has a lot to do with a student's mental images.  Miller reads aloud several poems to the students, several times.  She encourages the students to take a copy of a poem and capture the image in their head and draw it on a piece of paper.  The students then shared and saw how everyone's pictures were different!  Miller labeled a bulletin board "Why are our mental images different?  Our schema is different!"  We loved it and hope to try it soon in our classroom!  

Do you have your students ever draw or paint their mental images?  I did a great project with snow poems.  The students had to draw their mental images on black paper with chalk.  They loved it!