Teaching Students Imagination and Imaginative Listening

Teaching the Lost Art Of Imagination! Why Teaching Students Imagination Skills and Imaginative Listening is Important! Students always learn best when they are engaged and using their imaginations!

Teaching students imaginative learning (listening/speaking) is a critical academic skill that

is neglected in many lesson plans and reading curriculum. Students love to learn and read when they develop brilliant imaginations that are capable of visualizing words on the page! Imagination is one of the most powerful tools for reading success, yet teachers neglect teaching imagination skills, they are missing out on helping their students thrive academically. Teaching imagination and visualization skills are a postscript to an afterthought, or never taught as a critical academic skill. Without imagination and visualization students will never get lost in a book and dream the dreams of never-ending possibility. In my opinion imagination is an imperative academic skill, the key to helping all students love books and reading! Explicitly teaching imagination starts with great poetry and prose, the words are but fragments of pictures that are synthesized in the child's imagination and are reconstituted to create a vivid image. Sean Taylor The Reading Sage 

Imaginative Listening Question Stems 

1. What do you see, imagine, and or visualize?
2. Can you draw a picture for me?
3. Can you use your words to describe the setting?  
4. Can you act out what you imagine?
5. Please tell me what scene is the easiest to imagine?
6. The poet helps the reader visualize and imaging pictures in your mind using what imagery words . . . ? 
7. Which line in the poem best helps you imagine the scene ....? 
8. What is a possible visual summary of the poem.. ? 
9. Why did the author choose the imagery they did to paint the picture ….. what emotions are connected to the images . . . ?
10. What evidence from the poem shows that the imagery is allegorical (figurative) . . . ?
11. In stanza ____, why does the poet include imagery about …?
12. The poet organizes the imagery into what order in the stanza . . . ?
13. Read the lines ____ and ____ from the poem. The poet uses personification in these lines to show that . . . ? 
14. Which line best communicates the poets's feelings of __________?  
15. Read the line ... from the poem ..... The imagery in these lines appeals most to the reader's sense of . . . ?
16. Why are these imagery words included ..... in the selection? 

The Rainbow
~Christina Rossetti

Boats sail on the rivers,
And ships sail on the seas;
But clouds that sail across the sky
Are prettier than these.

There are bridges on the rivers,
As pretty as you please;
But the bow that bridges heaven,
And overtops the trees,
And builds a road from earth to sky,
Is prettier far than these.

Oh, They Have Robbed Me Of The Hope

By Anne Bronte

Oh, they have robbed me of the hope
My spirit held so dear;
They will not let me hear that voice
My soul delights to hear.

They will not let me see that face
I so delight to see;
And they have taken all thy smiles,
And all thy love from me.

Well, let them seize on all they can:
One treasure still is mine,
A heart that loves to think on thee,
And feels the worth of thine.

Winter Sky at Evening Time

Crystalized trees etched upon the sky
Gently painted with pastel colors
A hue of pink, a touch of blue
Surrounded by the softest purple
The winter sky at evening time
Reflects confidence in the dawn
The return of light, return of warmth
Spring but a whisper just behind

- Mary O. Fumento, 2012

Cherry Blossoms Adrift

Pink petals passing
Scents above so high
Painted porcelain perfection
Blossoms caress the sky

Swaying silent shroud
Suitors strolling by
Pink petals passing
Lover's gentle sigh

Pastel hues falling
Slow fluttering grace
Pink petals passing
Lining streams in lace

Pink petals passing
Smoothest transit by
Soft essence floating
In most subtle lullaby

Inducing springtime slumber
Upon a satin shore
Sailing with the current
Pink petals pass before

- Mary O. Fumento, 1999