Artistic composing as representational process

Abstract

Sigel's distancing theory and notion of representational competence provides the framework for examining students' interpretations of literature through artistic depictions. Through their productions the students represented not only the relationships they saw in the literature but also their own experiences as reflected in the action in the story. Their texts then served as representations that enabled them to reflect on their own experiences. The research procedure, which required students to respond to a videotape of their composing process, further prompted them to develop the material text they had created into a mental representation of their vision of themselves as instantiated in the characters of the story. The students engaged in three processes during their productions: generating representational images by empathizing with the literary characters; using spatial relationships and material objects to represent their construction of meaning in response to the signs of the literary text; and using their composing process both to represent their understanding of the story and to develop that understanding. The article supports Sigel's distancing theory by postulating that representation is a reciprocal, dynamic process in which experiences are both represented and are developed through the process of representation.