Bringing Narratives to life:
Using very few words the author of Drawn Together, Minh Le, creates a narrative masterpiece that leaves the reader feeling connected to the characters and relating to the emotions experienced. This very specific experience shared between a grandfather and his grandson is told mainly through pictures but not one detail is blurred or misunderstood. The story begins with a boy being dropped off at his grandfathers house after school. The images in the panels reveal the young boys melancholy mood and annoyance for being at his grandfathers through facial expressions.
Pg. 2
Tension between the 2 builds as their lack of ability to communicate becomes more and more evident over a silent dinner and an unenthusiastic response to watching a movie. The little boy decides to open up his art supplies and begin drawing as a way to entertain himself. Something we see he is very talented at. The grandpa sees this and gathers his sketch book and ink and joins his grandson. Suddenly, with minimal narration we see the 2 begin drawing and creating a world together. As illustrations of themselves as their childhood heros' in their dream world of color and bravery, they battle a dragon. This dragon representing their distance and differences, is defeated and a bridge is built to show the bond created.
Pg. 9-10
Pg. 27-28
Pg. 16
Even though only a few sentences were written in this book, an entire story is told. The author and illustrator use facial expressions, lack of dialogue in order to create tension, spacing with panels, and more to create emotion from the characters. After just examining the images, paragraphs could be written to add into the book. This mentor text can teach our students many things about narrative writing that they can utilize in their own pieces. The author showed us his story instead of writing paragraphs to tell us. Images are a great starting point for some students to help map out their narratives and inspire details. If students feel stuck or not motivated by their narrative, drawing may help take their story in a new direction that words couldn't do.
Drawn Together; Author & Illustrator info
Listen to this NPR interview with Minh Le for further information on the creation and inspiration of this book.
Bringing MY narrative to life
Crafting a leading sentence:
The beginning of a story holds a lot of pressure. It forms the first impression of the story and of the writer. We can see my changing thought process of how to begin my narrative in these 2 images. On the left I began my narrative with slightly wordy sentences. In the image on the left I chose to start my story at the very beginning of the series of events that happened, me packing for this adventure that would play out throughout the narrative.
Moving to the Middle:
Using a strategy exemplified in Drawn Together, discussed above, I drew images of my memories at the beach and creating the Darling Detectives movies. I also found old images and me and my cousins and sister to bring back some emotions associated with growing up with these traditions. Drawing the house and us making dribbles castles reminds me of details I could add into the text strengthen the story. Looking at the image of us from when we were so young and knowing where we all are now inspired how I wanted to wrap up the narrative.
