Connecting with Teachers

I feel bold. Contacting Israel Sanchez was one thing, but contacting a teacher who posted a Where the Red Fern Grows art project online four years ago for her middle school class is even scarier. Why'd I do it? It's cool to see how professional artists have visually reacted to Where the Red Fern Grows, but I want to see how the target audience uses art to express their interaction with the text. So, I need to go to the source. Here's the e-mail I wrote:

Mrs. Braxton,

 

I am an English Teaching major at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT. I am currently taking a class called Writing Literary Criticism in the Digital Age, and I'm doing a project (via my blog) on visual art responses to Where the Red Fern Grows and how they tend to more closely convey the emotions experienced while interacting with the novel than do written responses.

 

While researching the topic, I stumbled upon your website. I recognize it is from 2007, and perhaps a lot has changed since then, but I was wondering if you have any examples of student art based on the book that I could see. With the appropriate permission and citation, I would love to display some of these pieces on my blog for my classmates and other scholars to see.

 

The project you designed for Where the Red Fern Grows looks wonderful. Thank you for your time and your consideration.

 

Sincerely,

 

Amy Whitaker

I'll probably use almost the exact same e-mail (with minor necessary changes, of course) to contact other instructors who have used art as a way to explore Where the Red Fern Grows with their students. Hopefully I'll hear back from someone soon.