Mrs. Fuglestad & Mrs. Baughcum
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I have the honor of calling Carrie Baughcum my friend. She works in my district and our paths have crossed many times at educational conferences and edcamps. I've been to a few of her presentations on sketchnoting, joined her sketchnote challenges online (#passthesketchnote) and met face to face with her and the sketchnoting PLN during meetups at conferences. This woman is HECK AWESOME really, that is her handle on twitter too.) I feel like I know her even more now that I had the chance to read an advance copy of her guide to sketchnoting book, My Pencil Made Me Do It.
My sketchnote created as I read the book, My Pencil Made Me Do It, by Carrie Baughcum
Why your pencil was write
The book spoke to me in many ways as Carrie shared her journey to overcome her fear of drawing, learn to sketchnote, and finally take sketchnoting to her classroom. Here she found that her students also needed help to overcome their fears of drawing as they explored visual notetaking to share their learning in class. In this movie, Carrie shares her reasons for why it's important to sketchnote and the impact it has on learning.
My Sketchnote
I thought it was appropriate to create a sketchnote as a way of taking notes while reading the book. I find that I only really draw the things I connect with most, and the three pictures below are all very meaningful to me. Many adults and children are afraid of drawing. They hear negative self-talk that keeps them from trying, sharing, and exploring new things. I don't hear those words when it comes to art. I've always found refuge, courage, and joy in art-making. It's good for me to hear the internal dialog of struggle resulting from unkind words, shame, judgement, and life experiences. I can relate to this in other areas of my life, but thinking of them in the context of drawing is very useful as an art teacher.
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Carrie shared her journey of drawing, stretching out of her comfort zone, and sketchnoting. She talked about attending a conference and sketchnoting the keynote presentation. She felt that she wasn't doing it "right". We hear her internal struggle, decision-making, and see her determination to use imagery to connect with words in the way that made sense to her at that time. The permission to sketchnote my way frees me up to explore and find my own style that fits my way of putting images to the ideas that strike me most. The pencil knows what's write (even if you "should" be using a pen).
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The book also gives the reader ways to organize, support, and encourage you and your students in sketchnoting. I took away some tips on color schemes, creating containers, linking ideas, fonts, building an icon library, and structures. I really loved the visual thinking mantra, "What do you see when you hear..." This helps students frame words visually. Perhaps they can dip into their icon library and assemble a sketch that communicates this idea then connect it to other ideas. Then, before you know it, students are not only demonstrating learning, but teaching their brains to absorb information in a deeper and more connected way. Carrie tells of the time when a student finally broke out of copying the teacher's doodles and "went rogue" by sharing his own drawing. It was the beginning of a different kind of learning where languageless images melded learning styles and created emotional paths to curricular content.
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My test run: Sketchnoting a story
Sketchnote of Carrie's story about becoming a teacher
Carrie challenged me in her book to turn my thoughts about her story into a sketchnote. I took a picture that formed in my mind and drew it first, then thought about the three pieces of her story and put them in containers. I added arrows to help see the flow of the story. When I was done, I went back and added arms reaching up from the bottom. They just happened to fit nicely there and added more meaning to my drawing. I used colors and numbers to help visually connect my written descriptions and drawings. I feel like this is a much more organized way to sketchnote with a blend of creativity and structure.
Learning Mascot: Meet Matilda
Matilda is my learning mascot. She asks, Why the long face?
Another assignment from the book was to create a learning mascot. Meet Matilda. She is a creative and clever lady who is completely silly. She helps me through stressful situations by reminding me of my motto, "Life is too short for long faces." So ironic that she is drawn with such a long face. Life is full of irony. Matilda has been in my art since college. I painted her, sculpted her, and even made her come to life with augmented reality. I wonder what role Matilda can have in my art when I invite her to cheer on my learning and help me remember to relax and have fun.
My action plan: Sketchnoting & Mantras
Well, I'm an art teacher. I know there are lots of ways I can use sketchnoting with my students to help them connect with the world, what they're learning, and visually think.
- My first thought is to invite them to sketchnote. Sounds simple, but I can purposefully invite students to take notes when we are watching a video about an artist or art concepts.
- I can invite sketchnoting ideas into storytelling by having students use containers, links, and color schemes that unify their drawings similar to comics.
- I can uses MANTRAS to help activate visual thinking
- Everyone can draw their learning mascot who encourages them to TRY THEIR BEST
- I can help students build their icon library. The game, Quick Draw is great for this.
Update: Let's have some Fuglefun
I changed my mascot's name to Fuglefun since it better represents her role in my life, reminding me to have some Fuglefun. I showed her to all my students as we talked about the zones of regulation. I explained that when I'm in the red zone (frustrated or stressed out) or blue zone (sad) Fuglefun cheers me up and puts me back into the green zone.
Added the @eyejackapp qr code to labels that I can attach to the back of my @stickermule button so my #LearningMascot can help anyone #CalmDown #drydenrocks #artsed #augmentedreality #edtech pic.twitter.com/z8YC0UdZIj
— Tricia Fuglestad ☕ (@fuglefun) September 5, 2019
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