Word Cloud Art Project

Back in this post I shared the ideas for helping kids see God at work in their lives through reflective narrative writing.  My students wrote five narratives this year as part of that project, and also created a corresponding art project to illustrate their writing.  This is one of those five art projects, and it matched with this topic:

o   Knowing God through His People: Write a story about a person who is/was important in your life and how they helped you to know God better.

Have you tried Wordle or Tagxedo?  My students have used both online applications to create word clouds for various school projects.  The challenge for this art project was to create a word cloud, but without using a computer.

Color, handwriting, lettering styles, and layout were all discussed.  We practiced how they could vary the lettering in their word cloud using manuscript and cursive, as well as by creating bubble letters, serifs, waves, symbols, etc.

We also discussed emphasizing something using size and color, as well as how to balance the layout to make it flow and be pleasing to the eye.

The word cloud had to contain the name of the highlighted person from their essay, as well as nouns and adjectives that told more about them.  The goal was that the art would say as much as the actual essay, but in a different way.

Here are a few examples:

fyi, a little weird to see myself as the feature of a word cloud...

and I have to love this one...her essay about Fulton Sheen was phenomenal!

There you go!  Student created word clouds.  An easy and decorative way to pull a summary out of your students while allowing them to use their creativity. 

For more info and resources about our Write Your Story on My Heart project, click here: