OPTIC Strategy & Magical Realism
After diagraming three sentences today, we focused on the OPTIC Strategy for reviewing visuals. We
Viewed, Analyzed, and discuss Roots, a magically real self-portrait of Frida Kahlo, by Frida Kahlo. Roots focuses on an introspective look at Kahlo in an autobiographical depiction of magical realism. Students analyze Roots and explore how a visual depiction of magical realism can also communicate a human truth. Using the OPTIC Strategies graphic organizer the classes discussed the following components of the painting:
O: A woman lies on the parched earth. She appears to have a tree for a body and roots growing from her chest.
P: The earth–cracked, scorched, parched earth; a large crack in the earth threatens to engulf the women/tree. The woman–she appears to be a fallen tree. Her elbow is propped on a pillow, and she rests her head in her hand. Her hair flows from her just as the roots flow from her chest. The roots–the roots appear to have veins that are red with blood flowing through them.
T: Roots–self depiction of her roots (or her desire to establish roots). Roots can refer to feelings of being tied to the land of her people or her desire to bring forth life in which she would be the roots of life.
I: The woman depicted appears to be a tree of life. Her blood is nourishing the parched earth. A pillow rests beneath her head as she contemplates. The blood of the women flows out from her heart through the vines and roots into the parched ground. There could be a symbiotic relationship as both appear to be living off the other.
C: This is a representation of Kahlo’s desire to give birth as depicted by the birth of vines and establishment of roots (or family).
Then students used this information and details from the painting to fill out the next two or three rows of their Dialectic Journals, demonstrating the links between their reading of the painting and the criteria of magical realism. 
Students were reminded that they have a grammar quiz tomorrow. Their second week participation points will also be added, and the honors classes will turn their folders in for grading.