Header image from Watchmen, selected as one of the best novels all of all time by TIME magazine.
Previously: Background notes and optical illusions.
Be sure you’ve carefully read the lecture that uses artwork and optical illusions to demonstrate how your brain processes information and creates meaning. This process is at the root of everything you learn, from the way you compile grade abatement evidence to the way you relate to a literary character to the way you make a three-dimensional cube flatten into a diamond-like shape.
Now we will look at descriptive writing, which is rarely isolated as its own mode of discourse at your age. To help, we need a visual: Rorschach inkblots.
Using Google to learn about Rorschach is likely to introduce you to comic book anti-heroes1 and questionable personality tests, so anyone interested in the history should visit this National Library of Medicine article.
As you look at these ink blots, consider more than what you initially see. Consider also how best to describe the image to a reader who is looking at the same ink blot. Description is perhaps the simplest mode of discourse, but that makes it an opportunity to practice word choice and basic sentence construction.
Our in-class discussions will center around the variety of interpretations that are possible for each of these — and, perhaps most importantly, the way you can shift your peers’ understanding with effective description. This kind of thinking, also called divergent thinking, asks you to solve a problem in as many different ways as possible.
Load Google Classroom for the required number of descriptive paragraphs and any additional tasks. Focus on what a paragraph looks like and what it requires.
The ink blots can be loaded below. Remember to look for creative ways to describe them. For instance, #7 can be rotated to make what one past student described as a fire-breathing dog flying over a lake:
Save the images to rotate or reorient them, or search online for other galleries. Laptop users: You can press CTRL+SHIFT+⟳ to rotate your screen to view each of these images differently.
Next up: Telling a story.
Rorschach #1
Rorschach #2
Rorschach #3
Rorschach #4
Rorschach #5
Rorschach #6
Rorschach #7
Rorschach #8
Rorschach #9
Rorschach #10
That link exists to introduce anyone curious and motivated enough to find this footnote to Ground News, an excellent way to navigate media bias and factuality. ↩