Why I Chose AI to Reimagine Classic Literature
I am a middle school literature teacher. While teaching Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, I faced a frustrating problem: students today are used to short videos and comics. When facing large blocks of pure text—especially Santiago's long inner monologues at sea—they find it difficult to settle down and read, let alone imagine those lonely and grand scenes.
I have always wanted to create a Visual Guide for the students, much like a Graphic Novel, to help them "see" the story. But I can't draw. I previously tried using Midjourney, but not only did I have to write hundreds of words of English prompts, but the generated Santiago was also inconsistent—sometimes he had a long beard, sometimes a short one. It was impossible to connect the images into a coherent story.
Until last week, when I discovered Artifyillu. It completely changed my lesson planning efficiency.
What surprised me most was its "Long-Text Auto-Analysis" feature. I no longer need to rack my brain writing storyboard scripts like before. I simply paste Hemingway's original paragraphs directly into the tool, and it understands exactly where the psychological descriptions are and where the action scenes take place.
For example, when processing the classic scene where he "dreams of lions," I pasted the original text directly. The tool automatically extracted key imagery like "African beaches," "evening," and "young lions," generating the scene in seconds.
Even better is its Character Consistency. This is crucial for me! Throughout the courseware, the old fisherman Santiago must look like the same person. Whether he is fighting at the bow of the boat or reminiscing in a dream, as long as I lock the style, every AI-generated image maintains a unified character image.
Before, preparing such a fully illustrated lesson might have taken me a whole week of finding and editing photos. Now? It takes just a few minutes. Even with long chapters, I can input them in batches, and the output style remains a perfect, seamless oil painting texture.
Below are some of the illustrations for The Old Man and the Sea that I generated with this tool. These materials have now become the most popular "picture book resources" in my classroom. If you are also a creator or a teacher, I sincerely recommend you give it a try.
