reflection

Kay Evans-Bentley 24th October 2008
Reflection on, Visual texts; The story of the mouse trapped in the book
Amanda had the task of drawing 8 shapes randomly on paper and Pratiksha and I had to reproduce the image by only asking questions. It was so frustrating and after many, many questions we were both relatively happy that we had done it. Mmmm, I hadn’t and my attempt was nowhere near the same as Amanda’s or Pratiksha’s for that matter!
I then drew a masterpiece, an Indian standing by his tepee holding an axe with just a loin cloth covering his little body. With great effort I drew a blazing fire and was content with my fine art. I enjoyed the task to describe it to the others for them to draw and was amazed how they drew almost identical matches.
Amanda and I kept our eyes closed whilst Pratiksha described the images shown to her on the smart board. I struggled not to peek as I felt an overpowering urge to look for myself. I’m one of those people who when told not to look, will look, when told not to say something, will say it and unfortunately cry when told not to!
I could visualise the mouse with its long tale and whiskers and could also imagine the mouse nibbling away at food stuff but I wasn’t sure what it was exactly what it was supposed to be doing. I desperately tried to listen carefully but I kept loosing concentration as I strained to take in the information. My senses were challenged as I had to rely on my hearing and not my sight. We swapped roles and I attempted to retell the story of the Mouse trapped in the book. Although I read the title page, when faced with this task I unconsciously choose to ignore the clues given to me. We were in a group of 3, I was saved by Amanda’s ability to draw upon her imagination to finish the story as I drew a blank just like the first few pages the mouse was sitting trapped in.
Afterwards I found myself thinking about this little mouse and could have kicked myself for not being imaginative enough to invent a more exciting story. However, all was not lost as the journey home after school with my two children became story time and with all my newly learnt story telling powers, I mustered up an amazing account of how the very tiny, lonely, ever so hungry field mouse was lost in a book with nothing to eat but paper, escaped into the big wide world. They were most definitely impressed and are now expecting me to deliver stories with great passion during every car journey!