Uncategorized – Page 3 – A Closer Look

Revisiting, Revising, and Reflecting

Using Darcy’s idea for revisiting journals mid-year, we had our five-year-old students do just that. I modeled the process for them, looking at a few journal pages, and discussing some possible revisions with the class. My co-teacher advised, “Find a page that gives you an idea, then revise it.” I told them that it is important to have a reason for a revision. As the children looked through their journals, I circulated around and asked them about their thought processes.
As Hudson revisited a drawing of an owl, he said, “I’m coloring in the feathers because I like how it looks with the feathers.” (The original drawing showed a blank white empty circle for the owl’s body.

When he finished his revision, he commented, “I like making feathers. It makes it more good. It was easy to revise.”

A careful eye will also note that Hudson added a sun and sky and flowers to his original drawing.
Beside him, Edward explained, “I added a sky and a dandelion. The dandelion used to be a blue flower, but when I added the blue sky, you couldn’t see it anymore, so I made it a dandelion.” He also added, “I liked doing the revising, but it was hard.”
Pell pointed to his drawing of a planet. “The planet had aliens, but it needed a volcano. The volcano is erupting, so now the alien has to find a new planet.” When asked how the revision process was for him, Pell lamented, “It was really hard. Some of the colors wouldn’t come out on my paper, over the other colors that were already there.”
Harper had found a picture of her family that she had drawn some time ago. I asked her how she was revising it. “I’m making some hearts around it for love.” When asked how the revision process was, Harper said, “I liked that I had a chance to draw different things. My picture is better now.”

Since our first day of revising, we have noticed that many of the children are still going back through their journals, seeking ways to further explain, enhance, and elevate their work.

Starry Night

Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” is a perennial favorite in our classroom, so it wasn’t by chance that we decided to name our class the “Star” class. The painting was hanging on the wall since the start of school, along with Van Gogh’s quote, “…and what is done in love is done well.”

Starry-Night

Poster of “Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh

Recently, we had the children sketch their observations of “Starry Night” and write about them. A couple of students noticed the brush strokes:

Others interpreted the content:

We talked to the children about Van Gogh and his techniques, such as using short brush strokes and outlining some things in black. We also told them that he used a thick application of paint called “impasto”. We thickened the preschool tempera with some shaving cream, and the children painted in the style of Van Gogh.

This sparked additional conversations and journal entries about stars and space. The children brainstormed what they know about stars and/or the sun. We noticed that some of the students made statements such as “The sun is the hottest star” and “The biggest star is the sun”. We translated some of these statements into questions for the class: “Is the sun the hottest star?” and “Is the biggest star the sun?” The children made tally marks to answer these yes/no questions. We set out to debunk these myths by asking Google through the computer microphone. The children loved hearing what “she” has to say! We hung the tallied questions up, along with writing that explains the answer.

Next, we found about a half dozen library books about stars and the sun. The children paired up and read through a book together. We taught them how to use small post-it notes to mark the pages that interested them. They then took turns sharing what they found with the class, and we helped them read some new facts. As we move on with our star study, we will be turning our attention to our next British artist, John Hoyland, an abstract painter who sometimes depicted space.

We’ve Been Using Our Journals: What Now?

Re-planting in the greenhouse

I have a greenhouse, where I begin plants from seeds. It’s pretty experimental…I try to be courageous and grow new things every year. Some things thrive and some don’t. Once things are growing, I take stock of what is useful. Can I make soup from these tiny eggplants? Are these tomatoes good for sauce? Should I combine a few things for a salad?

The sketches and writing in the pages of our journals are just like the things growing in a greenhouse. We pour our thoughts, and sometimes our hearts, into these pages, collecting our memories and ideas like seeds, forming them into pictures and words like little sprouting plants. When we take the time to really look over what we’ve done, certain topics stand out as stronger and worthy of our attention. So we work on those: we re-write, revise, publish, and share. When someone eats a meal I’ve made from the food in my greenhouse, I feel it was all worth it. Likewise, when I re-work a sketch and some words from my journal into a finished, presentable piece of art and writing, I feel all those entries were valuable.

This is the time of year to reflect on what we’ve done and go forward with a plan. As writers in the classroom, journals can provide the rich soil from which we discover our growing voices.

Put aside time for your kids to read quietly through their own journals (and do it yourself). What sticks out as something you’d like to spend more time working on?
Pair your kids in teams of two, so they can read to each other from their journals and begin to hear what others might want to know more about. Give them questions to ask each other that will cause them to stretch their thinking. Teach them to take notes so they are sure to include the information they need.

In the next couple of weeks I will include some examples of revised works from children’s sketch journals. In the meantime have a wonderful winter break!

A Message for Teachers on How to Exist

Kick the Can memory from Darcy's journal — Kick the Can memory from Darcy’s journal

The other day my friend and colleague, Cyra Levenson, said, “Until the teacher has a voice again, no student will either.” I realized that while I coach how to teach writing to children, I have been neglecting to focus enough on the fundamental need for teachers to have a writing voice.

There are always great things happening in education, but for a long time now there have also been constraining mandates taking up more and more of our time. I felt suffocated towards the end of my time in the classroom, and today as a teaching coach I hear too often from teachers that they don’t feel like professionals when so much is decided for them. This needs to change. Obviously, you did not go into this job for the salary–so you deserve to feel happy in your job, as you educate the next generation.

Teachers: this is where I get bossy. If you don’t have a journal, get one. You need to exist on paper. Draw and write in it every day…not just about your students, but about yourself. Who were you as a child? How would you teach your younger self? What made you want to teach? What are your school memories? What do you love to do today? Write about anything. Join a writing workshop for teachers like the Summer Institute at the Yale Center for British Art (http://britishart.yale.edu/education/schools-and-teachers), or travel – there are teacher/writer workshops out there (like this one in Santa Fe: http://eefstc.sfprep.org/the-way-i-see-it/).

Reading a Degas painting from Darcy's journal — Reading a Degas painting from Darcy’s journal

Share your writing with your students so they see your process, your struggle, your courage, and your voice. And then, watch your students exist on paper too.

When we see ourselves as researchers and learners, we gain a deep understanding of the larger picture. We develop strategies to overcome the oppressive red tape and get down to what matters: learning to love learning.

Bird and Egg

Partly inspired by one student’s “bird journal” (a reference to his sketch journal—All of his entries this year have been about birds), and partly inspired by seasonal migratory patterns, a bird theme emerged in our classroom. After searching for “birds” in the YCBA’s collection, a sweet sculpture appeared: Henry Moore’s “Bird and Egg”.
We recorded the children’s observations, which included statements such as “I see two tiny holes” and “It doesn’t have a mouth”. The children then illustrated their observations.

Next, inspired by a previous blog post by James, we had our students look at the sculpture and pretend that the bird and egg were part of a story. As they studied the sculpture, the children collaboratively told the following:

Once upon a time, there was a bird. There was a princess picking some flowers. Some guys were hurting the bird, so it flew away. The bird sat on its egg, and it hatched. A man saw the princess picking the flowers. The man and the princess got married. They got the bird as a pet. The baby bird’s mommy flew away, so the baby bird was sad. The baby bird got attacked, but the mommy bird came back and saved it.

We decided that it would be important for the children to try their hand at sculpting their own birds. We found an old bag of powdered cellulose fiber, which, when blended with water, becomes a sticky, textural clay. It was the perfect base for our bird sculptures. Finishing the sculptures then became a multi-step process, which included painting, feathering, adding eyes, beaks, etc.

Finally, the children wrote facts that they have learned about birds. We displayed these with their birds and a collaboratively created tree sculpture in our “Bird Museum” in our classroom. A trip to the Connecticut Audubon Society capped off our bird study.

Self-Portrait Study

The “getting to know you” theme that many teachers engage in at the start of the school year is a natural place to introduce the idea of “self-portrait”. Sylvia, my co-teacher, and I created a display of a dozen self-portraits which show a range of artistic expression for our five year old students to peruse during the first few days of school. Frida Kahlo, Ansel Adams, Pablo Picasso, and Georgia O’keeffe were among those displayed.

After the children discussed their observations of the portraits and we recorded them on chart paper, we invited our students to create their own self-portraits. Once they were complete, we had them write a sentence starting with “I am…” and we posted their thoughts with their portraits. This period of self-reflection was wonderful.

Once this was finished, we thought it would be an excellent lesson to have the children study the faces on the professionally rendered portraits, and decide what the artists would say if they wrote “I am….” sentences. Each child really studied the portraits, looked into the eyes of the artists, and came up with some interesting responses.

I loved noting the time that each child spent, really studying and thinking about each portrait before writing his/her idea. Overall, it was a meaningful way to get to know each other better.

Portrait of a Summer Teacher

Just a couple of months ago, the auditorium at the Yale Center for British Art was speckled with torn paper, art cards, paintbrushes, cups of water, scissors, glue sticks, items to smell, feel, hear, and see. It was also speckled with teachers – teachers painting, tearing, gluing, drawing – and it was very quiet. The Summer Institute for Visual Literacy was under way. Out of the silence, from the floor between two rows of auditorium seats, comes a voice: “I’m sorry to break the silence, but I just have to say – I could not be happier!”

Carol worked on a collage inspired by the phrase in the text doorway: “Calm Morning.” She finds collage “liberating because it doesn’t require perfection.”

Sabine smelled lemon at the smell doorway, then found an art card to help her picture a place she’d visited. She used chalk to evoke a “blurry memory.”

In the Doorways workshop, everyone found themselves in their own stories. Lindsay was back on a crowded train. Juliet was back in South India with the smell of coconut and Gaugin colors. Joe went back 30 years to share coffee with his brother in Texas. We left behind our fast-paced, distracting lives that week. We slowed down. We paid attention. We relaxed. And like a vacation, we knew it was going to be hard to take it with us.

As the first weeks of school are under way, I hope that teachers have found a way to harness this kind of deliberate, deep thinking and take it with them into the year. Whether it’s altering everything you do just a little bit by bringing visuals into the classroom, or just keeping a journal for yourself for a while, the end result is better learning – and happier teachers.

3 Picture Book Activities

-Patti Darragh

Noticing the connection between text and illustrations in picture books is a great way to generate writing and gather ideas for new writing pieces.

As with all visual literacy strategies, start with the art.

Notice how the text supports the art and how the art makes the reader understand the text more deeply. (Note the common core implication here!)

Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Explores one color and names it in a variety of creative ways. Also shows how the shades of green are found in many things and relates objects to one another.

This book offers a creative way to build vocabulary and make associations between objects, themes and concepts. (OMG, more common core!)

Extend the idea; if you can do it with green-you can do it with any color!

Doodle by Rita Golden Gelman, Illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky

I love using this book with students. The idea is to follow a stream of consciousness in gathering ideas for a story. It is also a great example of alliteration.

I have students use a long strip of folded paper and black felt tip pens. They can add color later if they like. But the felt tips have a way of gliding over the paper that encourages the flow of ideas. (Can you believe it? Sequencing…Common Core AGAIN!)

The idea is to focus on line and connect ideas to each folded page. This student used alliteration and line. I love the second fold that highlights spinning actions and the third showing sound in “tappers tapping”.

Any book by Chris VanAllsberg

Examine his illustrations (especially the black and white) to talk about line, shading and texture and how they all contribute to tone. (Need I say, CCSS?)

One activity is to create a 3-4 panel sequence using charcoal and one or more of the following: white, gray, or black: colored pencils, crayon, oil pastels

Have the students experiment with the mediums before creating their own pictorial stories on the panels. Each time I do this, I learn something new from the kids that they discovered during exploration. Sharing their ideas and discoveries builds community and brings excitement to the process.

Sequence in charcoal:

Sketching and Writing

Sketching time is the planning piece of writers’ workshop. There is no talking. I prefer it to be silent, but many people (students and adults) enjoy soft music in the background. The idea is to have an environment where you can concentrate on the drawing and listen to your thoughts as you sketch.

When it is quiet, it is easier to do, especially in schools where there is so much activity right outside the classroom door and students are in close proximity to each other. But, as you might have noticed in the movie trailer, when the children sketch, they are totally engaged; observing, making marks and thinking.

The galleries in the museum are ideal places to sketch. The atmosphere in the museum encourages thought and quiet reflection despite the fact that the museum is a public place with visitors constantly walking by.

Some people mentioned yesterday, they got lost in their thoughts as they sketched and didn’t hear any of the sounds around them in the galleries.

Your students will feel the same when you bring them to visit.

I am always amazed at the memories and ideas that come to the surface when I am in the process of sketching.

Ask yourself. When you sketched in the galleries, were you reminded of someone or an event you hadn’t thought of in some time? Or did an idea occur to you that you hadn’t planned on?

I noticed with the group that when it was time to stop sketching and begin writing, there was no hesitation. Everyone had something to say and put pencil to paper immediately. No “writer’s block” seemed present.

How did that feel?

How did sketching help you begin writing?

Did you feel less pressure to produce writing?

How did you feel having invitations versus and assignment to writing?

How would your students react to this process?

Sketches serve several purposes in the classroom. With younger students, I post a sketching rubric as a reminder of expectations and to eliminate the requests for new paper and do-overs. I want them to work out the changes on the original piece. Don’t discard ideas, just put them aside. The sketch is not meant to “go with” the writing, it is more a collection agency of ideas and details that will be used for reference as they write.

I encourage students to keep their sketches on hand as they write. When they get stuck in writing the first thing I say is, “Go back to the sketch, add something, change something. “ This is the beginning of revision, even if they add shading or introduce a new color or object to the sketch. It will bring them back to the writing.

As I conference with students, the sketch is the first thing I read. Then, as I read the writing, I can refer back to the sketch to ask questions. It is a great way to get students to add elaboration to their writing. Sketches hold the details; expressions on characters’ faces, setting, tone, details on objects (color, shape, line). Are these details reflected in the writing?

Close looking at student sketches offer the teacher opportunities to ask questions and have deeper conversations with students about their writing. It is a more concrete way to start a conference conversation than “Tell me about your writing”.

Have fun with this-Patti

Using Your Senses

By Jennifer Kowitt

Yesterday at the Summer Teacher Institute, we discussed multi-sensory engagement in the galleries. Providing students with opportunities for connecting with a work of art through more than just sight can prolong engagement, differentiate instruction, and enhance meaning making. Take a look at the painting below. What could you bring into the galleries to create multi-sensory experiences with this painting? What would you ask your students to do or think about?

Joshua Reynolds, Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess of Hamilton and Argyll (c. 1760). Oil on canvas. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

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