Print out the student handouts. The students begin with an examination of a work of literature they have just completed reading; while a novel best suits this activity, another genre can be used. The activity may be used so that all students work with the same book or each group works with a different book. It may also be used as a final independent project for individual portfolios.

For a class activity, begin by dividing the class into groups of four or five students. Each group will be a publishing team and will collaborate to compile a great book/great art product. The fact that all students are working with the same literary text should not affect originality and diversity of choices.

This activity relies heavily on the use of computers with Internet access so be sure to set aside ample browsing time for groups to visit the gallery. The browsing is time-consuming but vital to the activity. You could limit the activity to American painters or painters of the 20th century, for example, or require at least one work of art to be a creation of the culture and the time period in which the book was written.

An alternative to the Internet browsing is to have students do this activity through library research. Instead of working with computers, they could find in art books the samples that are mentioned and provided on the Web site. They could also find their companion pieces to the literary work by perusing art books. Sharing the final products would require the small groups to provide pictures of the works of art they’ve selected.

For grading this assignment, teachers can take advantage of some logical points at which they can monitor progress and assess work: at the completion of Phase IA; at the completion of Phase IB; and at the completion of the final product, Phase IID. A suggestion for weighting of parts would be 20 percent for Phase IA, 40 percent for Phase IB, and 40 percent for the final product IID.