Integrating Art and Literature

For many students, creating art is enjoyable. You can utilize students’ enjoyment of art to help them get more from a novel than they can by simply reading it. Here are some art activities that can be used to enhance students’ appreciation of a novel. Each of these activities requires that students think carefully about the concepts presented in a novel to be able to create artwork that accurately reflects the text.

• Identify a major theme in the novel. Have the students design a piece of art that reflects that theme.
• Have students redesign the book cover. This will require the students to think about the most important scenes and themes in the novel in order to create a cover that reflects these.
• Have students draw a setting that particularly stood out to them in the novel.
• Have students create a portrait of one of the main characters in the novel.