Image Grammar

So I think it is pretty cool that I had a class with Professor Noden last semester. When I signed up for his class and he talked about this "image grammar," I just thought it was something he did at Hudson; I thought it was a tiny pamphlet of ideas. Never did I realize his book would be so nationally acclaimed (I've done some research on it) nor were all his ideas so cool. I remember in class doing activities and being like what does this have to do with brush strokes? How do brush strokes teach? But after reading the text I understand completely. We did an activity (which someone actually kind of demo'd in our class) where he would show us pictures and we had to write about that picture. We had to be descriptive and talk about the details and images. It was a great practice in writing but I didn't realize it was conditioning us to look at the images and not think of things as just writing. Mr. Noden's book is FILLED with ideas on how to teach image grammar. Not only does he give written descriptions, but he also gives a CD to utilize. As many of my classmates know, I am a huge Hemingway fan (blame it on Dr. Trogdon). I thought it was so cool that there was a section in Mr. Noden's book that talked about Hemingway's unique sentence structures, in particularly with The Old Man and the Sea. It talked about people re-writing it using his rhythm. I think this is something I can use next semester when I teach this novel. If you understand rhythm of an author (and you have to, to do this assignment) then you are seeing grammar in a whole new way.

I applaud Mr. Noden for his work on image grammar. Grammar is something that our students aren't getting enough of. They get to college and professor's are just astonished by their poor grammar. I think we need to venture away from being grammar police and teach it in a unique and meaningful way like using the idea of brush strokes. Our students will be able to use it in their writing and will help them become stronger writers.