Perceiving

I have chosen the fantasy genre for my content topic area. Fantasy is my favorite genre to share with my 4th grade students. When I began this assignment, I created a list of all of the things that I think about related to the fantasy genre.  I wanted to then create images of my list. Therefore, I began searching through my home to find images of the elements of fantasy.  This is when I created my movie of the elements of fantasy.

   I had so much fun coming up with the images for the video!  One of the images that I shared was a magic potion. In my head I pictured something colorful, swirling and sparkly.  Finding the colors, and texture to portray this image took some time and thought.  What would it look, smell, and feel like?  I also portrayed a flying superhero.  Creating that concept of flying in an image was more difficult than I originally intended.  However, when I was able to capture the image of flying through sound and motion, I was able to gain deeper meaning from the image (such as using a fan to provide air to portray movement in the cape).


 While I was creating the video of the images I had collected to represent my perception of the fantasy genre, I began to use other sensory stimuli, such as what I hear when I think of these images, and add the audio to the video. This provided the opportunity to re-present my image of fantasy in another way! I took the audio and converted into it's own "song" of fantasy!

Using this tool of perceiving provides a new look at the images from  different perspectives to the viewer to gain deeper insight and understanding of the image/objects of study.  Using our senses to form images provides opportunity for students to gain more meaning from a topic rather than just seeing it "at face value".
     We must model and practice perceiving skills with our students often to build a foundation of gaining meaning of a particular topic on all levels.  Providing a multi-sensory approach allows the student to gain awareness and build a higher level of understanding.  We are able to provide different representations of an image to reach all learners.    As we attune to all of our senses, we are awakened to a brand new perspective on something that once seemed ordinary.