Open-Mind Portrait

From Tompkins, G. E. (2003). Samples from “Compendium of Instructional Procedures” In Literacy for the 21^st century, 3^rd ed. (pp. 486-487). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.

Open-Mind Portrait: Choose a favorite character from the book (a character which you relate to) and create an open-mind portrait. Below are the steps:

a.      Make a portrait of a character.  Draw and color a large portrait of the head and neck of the character.

b.       Cut out the portrait and open-mind pages.  Cut out the character’s portrait and trace around the character’s head on one or more sheets of paper.  Make an open-mind portrait with “mind” pages to show what the character is thinking at important points in the story or in each chapter of the book.  Then cut out the mind pages and attach the portrait and mind pages with a staple or brad to a sheet of heavy construction paper or cardboard.  The portrait goes on top.  It is important to place the staple or brad at the top of the portrait so that there will be space to write and draw on the mind pages.

c.       Design the mind pages.  Lift the portrait and draw and write about the character, from the character’s viewpoint, on the mind pages.  Focus on what the character is thinking and doing during specific points in the story.