Story Outlining and Retelling Using a Wordless Book

The Red Book by Barbara Lehman is a wordless picture book, so it may not be the first to come to mind when considering a book to “read aloud” to a class. However, because the illustrations tell the story, The Red Book can be an ideal book to use as students practice outlining and retelling stories.

It is just one example of how wordless book or single pictures can be model "texts" for creative writing. Students can practice reading response in general by “reading” wordless picture books together. As we examine the pictures together, it is obvious that a story is occurring. Writing our own stories is the natural next step.

Ways to Summarize Literature

In my co-op classes, I teach a few ways to approach literature.

One way to approach a story is to examine character development and practiced finding the beginning, middle, and end of a character's particular story. We observed how characters often changed over the course of a story. How does the main character change from the beginning of the story to the end of the story?

Another approach to summarize a story is by defining the roller coaster plot: the story starts slow, then gradually builds up to a main point. The highest point of the roller coaster is the climax of the story. A climax is where there is a turning point in the plot. After the climax, the downward “roller coaster” or “falling action” may be much shorter than the buildup has been. At this point, the story resolves itself nicely because the main “change” has already happened.

Also, we often can look at a story in terms of a problem that needs to be solved. It is a progression from problem to action to resolution. This does not mean a “problem” is always obvious. In The Red Book, for example, the girl’s problem is related to the finding of the red book. It is more of a mystery than what we’d think of as a “problem.” Problems can be physical, mental, emotional, or even mysterious.

Another way to get a general feel for a story is to try to fill in the blanks for a sentence like this: Somebody . . . Wanted  . . . But  . . .  So . . . Then . . . At last . . . . I call this a story "hamburger" because it captures the main plot points between the important points (the top and bottom bun being a main character and a resolution, respectively). 

I've created some brainstorming pages for writers that highlight some of these story organization and brainstorming methods. 

Reading and Retelling a Wordless Story

Students should gather their initial thoughts on the illustrations to begin. It is important that teachers/parents allow students to come to their own conclusions. The great thing about literature is that as long as students can reference the text (in this case, the illustrations), their own experiences and ideas matter the most. Their own opinions will therefore change their interpretation. There is often no right or wrong in responding to literature. Everyone can understand the story based on their own life experiences and interpretation.

After initial observations, students should consider the beginning, middle, and end of the story. The beginning sets up a scene with an interesting action. The middle is typically the longest portion in which the most action takes place, and the end will be when things have been “resolved.”

Outline the story using just 1-3 pictures. This is our retelling, and there is a reason why the author did not write words for their own story. Now we can make it our own story by focusing on the most interesting points. In the printables I’ve prepared, I’ve provided a few boxes in which to capture some of these main points. Sentence frames in the boxes and questions in the margin may help students gather the main points, rather than trying to capture every single thing.

After the main points are written, then the student can retell the story and embellish it with their own details, such as dialogue, names, strong verbs and adjectives, and so forth. This is the time when students can put the emotion and feelings back into the text. They can even adapt the ending if they want.

With the initial reading and understanding of the text, the students covered the emotions and feelings that came with the illustrations and the character. With the outlining, the students captured the main plot points. Now the student can put them together in their own creative way. Using a wordless picture book gives them freedom with words.

The sky is the limit on retelling a story like this. There are many options. It may take some convincing to help students let go of the structure they are familiar with. But capturing the spirit and story of the book will be much more fun if they begin outlining first rather than trying to tell every detail upon initial reading.

Telling a Story from Any Picture

Try this with any picture book, or take just one picture. As a student examines one picture, they can brainstorm a story. 

To begin, consider the picture as the moment of action in the story. Then brainstorm the before and after. What happened before the picture took place? What will happen after the picture takes place? This is a great three-part format to structure a basic story. 

Of course, any picture can be inspiration for any type of writing.  I had a student describe a robot fish from David Wiesner's Flotsam. He created a backstory to the type of fish it was and how it lived and attacked. He did not follow our brainstorming format to write his paragraph, and that was okay. Another student used a Norman Rockwell picture to write a tangential story about a boy watching a murder trial. Although the stories were only loosely related to the picture the student chose, the end results were highly creative. There are plenty of directions in which to go when writing creatively from pictures.

Download the Lesson Idea

In my Writing from Pictures product, I provide a list with a few sample of wordless picture books, wordless graphic novels, and single classic illustrations to be used for a Writing from Pictures unit. I also have a sample discussion relating directly to The Red Book as the focus text to give you a better idea on how such a discussion might be organized. I provide a variety of brainstorming and idea organizers for both a three-picture inspired story as well as writing from a single picture. I also provide some public domain artwork that can printed or displayed digitally as inspiration for your students.