The festival will feature inspiring and award-winning independent short films for a young audience. Audience members may
come and go as they please. Two screenings of the same films will be offered. Free; no registration required.
As this school year draws to a close, I know a lot of teachers that are looking at their jobs with new eyes. Headlines regularly tell us about young people losing their way, resorting to senseless acts of violence. Social media apps sweep through school communities, allowing kids to anonymously post comments about each other. Many schools are losing recess time and art programs. All the while, teachers are scrambling to adjust to the new Common Core mandates and preparing for the state tests that will follow. And in many cases, kids are having a harder time paying attention to what we are teaching.
As always, teachers go into their summers carrying big questions: Who are we teaching today? And what exactly should we be teaching them? What should we do differently next year?
I’ve described Visual Literacy lessons many times in this blog. We already know that art helps us to increase vocabulary, inspire writing topics, and discover our literate voices. But the bigger picture is that art teaches us how to be empathetic. It requires us to step into each others’ shoes. When we describe what someone else painted, and listen to each others’ varied points of view, and connect to our peers by drawing our stories for them, we are doing what kids have less and less opportunity to do these days: making real contact with each other.
One of my favorite lessons is when I ask students to draw a painting from a different perspective, and then write about the experience. This requires spacial skills, critical skills, and invention. But if you read Audrey’s writing closely, you can also see that it develops the ability to imagine oneself as someone else. As Maxine Greene says, “Imagination is what, above all, makes empathy possible.”
In the drawing below, Audrey, a second grader, finds a new way to look at a picture of a school of fish.
In her writing, she describes how her picture shows “what a fish in that school might see.” She goes on to say that “Through looking at art you can get inspired and have ideas you never thought of. Like trying looking at things through someone else’s eye or just looking closer at something.”
John Dewey defined teachers as the key to community. Learning to see the world through each others’ eyes is key to developing a sense of community, as sense of belonging, and a conscience.
We wanted to have the children study some still life paintings, so Sylvia and I scoured the Yale Center for British Art website to find an artist whose style we had not yet considered. We were delighted to discover Patrick Caulfield, whose rich, graphic paintings bespoke pop art. As is now our routine, we had the children “write” their observations regarding the few paintings we had selected. You could have heard a pin drop during this process. They verbally shared their ideas:
We began to teach various biographical pieces of information regarding Caulfield, including how his style had changed over the years: Caulfield began to take away any elements that he felt were unnecessary…“I was aiming at reducing the means by which one described things.” We had the children “reduce” what they had said about Caulfield’s work, by crossing out what they felt were the “least important” words, resulting in yet another class poem.
Yellow window
Wine glasses
Water bottles
Maple tree
Monkeys eating bananas
Green pears
Cheesy sandwich
Little painted glass squares
Squares like a quilt
Over the next days, we discussed what a still life was, and the children were invited to select some items from our dramatic play area to sketch their own. A pot and some fruit arrived, and here are some of their illustrations, which they entitled:
We loved seeing the whimsy in their individual interpretations!
Finally, we thought it would be thought provoking to have the children imagine that if Caulfield could visit, what would we like to ask? The children had never written questions before, and we were delighted to see the variety and content that resulted. There were some big questions such as:
It was interesting to note that several questions were about this painting, “Garden with Pines”:
On the whole, we very much enjoyed this exploration with the children.
My co-teacher, Sylvia Grannan, and I were a bit surprised that some of our students were still unsure of shape names by this time in the school year. A geometry unit was in order, and immediately Sylvia thought of Piet Mondrian. After displaying some of his paintings, the children made observations of Mondrian’s work:
Sadie, who has lived in NYC remarked, “It looks like apartment buildings and elevators.” Most of the other children noticed the concrete elements: colors, shapes, and lines. In truth, as we set out to find biographical information on Mondrian, we found that both he and the analysis of his work are so esoteric that it’s difficult to teach the children about the artist. However, we seized the opportunity to emphasize primary colors.
One day, Sylvia had the children close their eyes and said, “Imagine red. Just think about red.” The room was more or less silent for a minute or so, as our 5-year-olds pondered red. Sylvia gave the children a blank sheet of white paper and asked them to illustrate what they saw, and then write about it.
The children shared their results at circle time and then decided to put it all together into a class poem:
Red Is:
By the Unicorn Class, March 2014
Red is a face,
Red is a volcano erupting,
Red is anger,
Red is a zipper,
Red is butterflies,
Red is fire,
Red is our class color,
Red is a ladder,
Red is a sun,
Red is a meteor.
It was such a successful process; we did the same for yellow and blue. In addition, at the art center, we put out black electrical tape, and tempera paints in the primary colors. We found small, stiff canvasses, and the children went to town, taping their canvasses with vertical and horizontal lines and painting the resulting quadrangles. Here’s a display of several together:
“Once we draw, all of the sudden we begin to see again. Were we blind? How could we have ignored the beauty, the intricacies of these simplest things? The convoluted network of veins in an oak leaf, the graceful curve of a clover’s stem, the starry splendor of a humble dandelion…” Fredrick Franck
When teachers cover non-fiction units, we try to provide field or classroom experiences so that children can engage meaningfully and therefore fully assimilate what they learn. We grow fast plants in the classroom so that their life process can be observed. We lug in boxes of beautiful books about sea animals, icebergs, and cloud formations so that our students can see rather than just listen to facts. We bring in ant colonies, leaves, and rocks – all to bring the outside world into the room.
All of this is brought to a higher level when we draw. I always tell my students that scientists learn by drawing.
Frankie, a third grader, learns about snails by carefully copying a picture out of a book.
In the absence of the real thing, photographs can be helpful. Right now education publications are putting out photo-laden books based on the Common Core, which are flooded with non-fiction. But a rich and detailed painting can provide the engagement we are often looking for when introducing our kids to unfamiliar topics. Looking at art is pleasing to our senses, and creates an environment that is open and inviting. Additionally, the act of drawing is a meditation – and when students create their own reproduction of something, it invests them in the topic. Their pictures also allow us to see what they already know, so we can easily differentiate, allow them to form their own questions, and help them to find the answers they need.
TRY THIS:
1. Take 15 quiet minutes to copy all or part of this Thomas Barlow painting from the YBCA collection into your journal (no phones, no interruptions). Don’t stop before the 15 minutes is over. During that time, pay attention to what you are thinking and wondering. Make notes right on the page as they come into your head.
2. Now take 10 minutes to label everything you can on your picture. Anything you don’t know, label with a question mark or write down what you are wondering. You have now laid out your own research outline for a study of birds.
I begin all science units by having the students draw. In the past we’ve started by drawing plants, the human skeleton, sea creatures, clouds, trees, earthworms, rocks, ants and owls. Find a painting of what you are studying (I found this bird painting on the Yale Center for British Art online collection)!
Slowing down to draw actually speeds up the learning: you would not believe the mad rush to the books and computers once the students realize they haven’t been able to properly label their beloved drawings! When a child draws, she realizes that she has questions. Those questions become her drive to learn.
The Yale Center for British Art’s vast online collection is a great resource to use in the classroom. Here are step-by-step instructions with images to walk you through a topical search of the online collection.
Step 1: Go to the Yale Center for British Art website. You can click here, or type in http://britishart.yale.edu/ into your web browser.
Step 2: Under “Collections,” select “Search.” You can also click on “Highlights,” “Using the Collection,” and “Related Resources” to find other materials and information that can help you in the classroom.
Step 3: After clicking on “Search,” the “Search All Collections” webpage will come up. You might use this search if you are looking for a specific painting or various works by one artist. Searching all collections will give you artwork and literature across all mediums. To narrow your search, look to the right hand column and decide what you are looking for.
Step 4: For this example, we will search the “Paintings and Sculptures.” Selecting this will send us to the “Paintings and Sculptures,” search page. As you can see, selecting a medium will allow for even more options to narrow your search and find exactly what you are looking for.
Step 5: Search for the paintings and sculptures that you want to see. By clicking on the “Classification” or “Genre” options, a dropbox menu will appear with various options that have already by pre-selected. These can be helpful in coming up with ideas, or you can choose to type in your own original search. For this example, we will look for Animals in Art. We can see that there is an option for “animal art” in the “Genre” menu.
Step 6: After selecting “animal art” and clicking on Find, we are sent to a page with all of the paintings and sculptures that are categorized under the “animal art” genre. Remember, you can narrow down your search even further by providing more information in the search page. You can also narrow down your search using the various options on the right side of the Search Results page.
Step 7: Select an image from the Search Results page to learn more about the artwork. Many of the pieces that are part of the Permanent Collection here at the British Art Center have images that can be downloaded and used for your use in the classroom. Simply click on the “Download” option underneath the image, and select how you would like to download the image. Images that the British Art Center does not have rights to will not be available to download.
The online collection is a valuable resource that the Yale Center for British Art provides and understanding how to search the collection is necessary in utilizing this resource. Please feel free to comment with any questions about the online collection and how to use it.
By Hallie Cirino, 5’s teacher, CHT Preschool, Westport, CT
One of the great joys of teaching in a school which embraces an emergent curriculum is finding artists whose works reflect the interests of the children. Recently, my co-teacher, Sylvia Grannan, and I noticed an emerging curiosity in jungle animals, so Sylvia said, “Why not study Rousseau?”
We hung colored copies of a small selection of Henri Rousseau’s vibrant paintings on a classroom wall, and waited for the children of our pre-K class to take notice. Our students were immediately drawn in, informally pointing and discussing Rousseau’s work. “Look at those monkeys!” “I like the flowers.” “The moon is full.”
The next day, we set out blank white paper, markers, crayons, pencils, and pastels, and asked the children to “write” what they notice about the paintings. Every one of them first drew what stood out to them, and then wrote a sentence about it. The students each took a turn to share what they had drawn and written.
A few days later we revisited their writings, and decided to write a collaborative class poem. The children started the poem by making a list of all the things they noticed in the paintings. We told them that these words are called nouns. The students then added action words to express what the objects/animals were doing in the paintings. Finally, they added descriptive words (adjectives). This was incredibly challenging yet fun for our five-year-olds! Here is their Ode to Rousseau:
Feathered owl resting
Happy monkey swinging
Leafy flower growing
Red plants waving
Tall trees bundling
Round orange sitting
Furry lion sniffing
White moon glowing
Tired girl sleeping
Stringy guitar laying
Serious person standing
Fun city spinning
Along the way, we read parts of a biography about Rousseau, which included the interesting fact that he had never seen a jungle and painted largely from his imagination. At the end of our artist study, we put out paints in the colors of Rousseau’s jungle paintings. The children were invited to use their imaginations, and paint whatever Rousseau had inspired. One of the children wanted to entitle his, and pretty soon they all had titles, from “Beautiful Flowers” to “Hiding Jungle”.
The students of our class are now showing an emerging interest in sharks…
“We just had the greatest class discussion! The vocabulary, the ideas, the connections…BUT, when it came to writing it down, they fell apart.” Does this sound familiar? We’ve all seen how easy it is to lose the magic when they face the blank page. How we handle the delicate transition to writing is the key to getting students to transfer their spoken language to the paper.
We often over-structure this transition, offering sentence starters and writing prompts which only serve to limit the children. Just as often, we give too much freedom, trusting that their enthusiasm for the painting will spill onto their paper. Both approaches usually result in blank pages. Offering the right balance of support is key. Here are two steps that ease the path to writing:
1. Allow time for drawing. With limited time in our schedules, I know it is tempting to jump to the writing. But I can’t overstate the value of taking the time to draw first. Drawing helps them – and us – see what they want to say. After discussing a painting, ask them to copy all or part of it, or they can draw something that the painting made them think of from their own lives. This helps them find their own writing voices.
Below, a third grade student has copied a painting from a postcard.
Garrowby Hill by David HockneyThird grader’s copy of Hockney’s Garrowby Hill
2. Provide Writing Invitations. These are key to helping students transfer their ideas to writing. Below are some Writing Invitations that I have used to guide students, while still allowing them enough choice to use their own voices. I always give at least two invitations, and I always “Your choice” (the child who chooses that one has thought of something I haven’t – and I am usually pleasantly surprised).
Sample Writing Invitations:
– Imagine yourself into your picture. What happens around you? Use all your senses to write a description or a story. (Other ways to say this: “Press play as if this painting is a video. What happens when it starts?” Or, “Start by telling what you smell, hear, see, or feel. Be detailed so I can imagine exactly what it’s like.”)
– Describe this painting. Be as detailed and descriptive as you can, and surprise me. (This is where metaphors and similes begin to show up).
– Write about what you were thinking as you drew. Where did your mind take you? What did you wonder and notice? What was easy or hard about drawing this picture? What surprised you?
– (for masks, statues, or portraits) Can you become this person for a while and write about your day?
– Does this picture/art piece make you think of a real place you’ve been, or a moment in your life? Include the sounds, the smells, the feeling of your memory.
– Your choice
There are unlimited Writing Invitations. You will think of what fits the needs of your class. For young children, sentence starters are not the enemy! Giving them the first few words can kick-start things for them (stick to something open-ended such as “I see/smell/feel/hear….” rather than something more constraining like, “I like this painting because…”).
After copying Hockney’s painting, this third grader reacted to the second invitation from above. She wrote:
“There is a squiggly purple road heading south. On the left there is a crowded tree place with one humpy hill. On the right of the road there is a grassy place with a garden. Down south the road leads to a rural kind of place which looks like precious glass.”
For teachers: Copy a painting into your journal, and use an invitation to write about it. What was your process like? What was surprising? Share your experience with your class – and with us!
Here’s a classroom activity using Reg Bulter’s Man (early 1960s) from the online collection.
Lesson: Explore the value of location, view-point, and narration.
Activity: class drawing, reading, and writing
Process: Use all three images from the online collection
Draw image (10 min) whole or detail. Respond in writing to the following questions (5 min). What is the mood? What is the story?
Draw second image (10 min) whole or detail. Respond in writing to the following questions (5 min): What is the mood from this perspective? What is the story?
Draw third image (10 min) whole or detail. Respond in writing to the following questions (5 min): What is the mood from this perspective? What is the story?
Reflection and follow up: If you had only seen one of these images what would you know in terms of mood and story?
In what ways might we use our classwork today towards understanding the effect of location, view-point, and mood when we read literature? When viewing works online? When reading a news story?
Example: Although I generated the lesson for the students and their needs, I too benefit from ‘seeing perspective’ and participating with them. Here’s a clip from my journal covering two of the steps.
Place in the Classroom
The activity generated quite a bit of conversation in the classroom the following day. Students gained perspective on a range of skills and frameworks — from seeing perspective to the role of location in story telling.
