Tallulah Falls School students turn museum artwork into original fiction

TALLULAH FALLS, Ga. — Inspiration for a powerful story sometimes begins with a single image.

For seventh graders at Tallulah Falls School, that image came from the online collection of Atlanta’s High Museum of Art. What followed was a monthlong writing project that challenged students to transform artwork into original fiction.

Emily Papandreas of Clarkesville discovered her inspiration while scrolling through the museum’s digital archive.

“My eyes landed on this piece, and I felt inspired,” she said.

The photograph — “The Guest 5:39 p.m. 27-6-96 (NB)” by Christopher Bucklow — sparked the idea for a fictional narrative exploring how loneliness can shape and corrupt a person’s soul.

“I was looking at the photograph, and I thought of a sailor — a fisherman who frequently goes out to sea and always has the chance of not returning, but goes out anyway,” Papandreas said.

The story took shape on her Chromebook in seventh-grade English teacher Kim McClurg’s classroom.

McClurg designed the assignment as part of a “Writing From Pictures” unit from the Institute for Excellence in Writing curriculum. While preparing the lesson, she realized her students would soon visit the High Museum during a field trip to Atlanta.

“I thought, what better way to make a field trip come alive?” McClurg said. “I changed my lesson plans when I made that realization.”

Students were asked to browse the museum’s website, choose a piece of art that spoke to them and write a fictional story inspired by it.

The assignment quickly became more than a simple writing exercise. Over the course of a month, students developed keyword outlines, drafted stories in writer’s notebooks, revised their work and refined their structure. Lessons focused on techniques such as varied sentence openers, strong verbs, dialogue, figurative language and polished grammar.

“It opened up their writing,” McClurg said. “They are experimenting with style and learning how to vary their structure intentionally.”

Scarlett Stapleton of Alto said she became so engaged in the assignment that she stayed up late working on her story.

“I am really proud of how I took the persona of someone from the Tudor period,” she said. “Here’s a line I wrote: ‘Face me when I speak to you!’ It is how I wanted my character to speak and to act.”

Stapleton’s story was inspired by “A Woman of Boulogne Nursing Her Child” by Aimé-Jules Dalou. She researched Mentha pulegium, a flowering plant in the mint family historically associated with infertility, to add historical detail to her narrative.

“They have beautiful purple flowers and bloom late July through September,” she said.

Turner Lander of Lula also relied on research to shape his story after selecting a photograph titled “Gussy’s Magnolia” by Jack Spencer.

“I immediately saw the contrast — the white magnolia against a dark background,” Lander

said. “I thought that would make a great story.”

His narrative traced a family history from 1765 to 1997, imagining enslaved individuals escaping from George Washington’s plantation during the Revolutionary War.

“Gussie mentioned the magnolias, and she teared up, thinking of how loving her great-grandma was,” Lander said.

Audrey Roy of Toccoa found inspiration in “The Proscenium, Théâtre Antoine” by Édouard Vuillard, a painting that reflected her interest in theater.

“I found a painting of someone in the audience looking up at the stage, and it was in the style of painting that I like,” Roy said.

Her story focuses on a girl navigating friendship and bullying before discovering confidence through performing on stage.

“I wanted to do something that most kids experience,” she said.

Students completed the final drafts of their stories just before their field trip to the High Museum, where they were able to see the works of art in person.
For Papandreas, the experience brought her inspiration to life.

“I didn’t expect it to be so big — it is 12 feet wide,” she said. “I had not seen the detail — every wire, every shard of glass, every shred of fabric was perfectly placed.”
Roy said seeing the painting up close deepened her understanding of the work.

“I could feel what the person felt when they were painting it,” she said. “I understood the painting better as I stood next to it. I felt more connected to the artist.”

By combining art, research and storytelling, the Tallulah Falls School project showed students that inspiration can come from anywhere — even a single image on a screen — and grow into meaningful, original writing.