ARCHIVED - Our Voices, Our Stories:
First Nations, Métis and Inuit Stories

Educational Resources

The Story Blanket

Activity 2.2
Illustrating the Story Blanket

1. Each student will use the segment of the story that they have re-written in their own words from Activity 2.1. Using their segment as the subject, each student will create an illustration for their group's story blanket.
   
   
2. Have students plan or sketch their illustration in advance to make sure it includes the details of their part of the story.
   
   
3. Students may use paper or cloth, but all finished illustrations should be the same size.
   
   
4. Students can use a variety of artistic techniques, such as cartooning, collage, painting, etc.
   
   
5. For a batik-style blanket square, students can:
   • outline images in white glue and allow to dry;
   • use fabric paint for cloth (or regular paint for paper) to fill in the glue outlines;
   • wash fabric (if using cloth) to remove glue.
   
   
6. For more illustration ideas, visit the Library and Archives Canada website on artists' books: Livres d'artistes.
   
   
7. For continuity, use the same artistic technique for all the blanket squares (i.e., all sunsets might be made with strips of tissue paper, or use only black silhouettes for figures.)
   
   
8. Students who have similar parts in the storyline may want to work cooperatively to ensure continuity of character size, placement, objects in setting, etc.
   
   
9. Sew, glue, tape or hang story blanket squares together in the correct order to create a square or rectangular blanket. You may wish to use black paper to frame each image before assembling. If there are not enough blanket squares to create a complete blanket, you can fill in the missing space with an additional square (or squares) that provides the story's title or the names of the artists.
   
   
10. Retell the story as a class, each student presenting their part.

Note: Please see Evaluation Tools to evaluate student participation.