drawing – Page 2 – A Closer Look

Ode to Rousseau

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.

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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”.

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The students of our class are now showing an emerging interest in sharks…

Inviting the Writing: The Path Between Drawing and Writing

“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.

kaylens-hockney — Third 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!

Seeing Perspective

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?

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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.

seeing perspective example1

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.

–James Shivers

DRAWING A PASSAGE

2-drawing-passage-240x300 — What if? The Odyssey, Bk 5

Poetry is one of our oldest image-makers. Words paint. Readers imagine the world of the text. What if we tapped into this visual process and redirected the output? What if we began asking readers to ‘give us a picture’ of what they ‘see’ as they read?

What do these words see? And later, how might words show a place or an emotion?

Crazy how the gods are getting blamed for all this

Poetry attempts to alter our perception through words. By asking students to draw what they see in a passage or a chapter we bring them into the poetic process. Creating a classroom where these drawings are shared and discussed situates each member of the class as an image-maker. By establishing various drawing activities within the study of the language arts we encourage students to explore other versions of ‘image-making’. The imagination has another platform. Students have access and place to continue the conversation.

In class students discussed their planning (“pre-writing”) for their design as well as their hopes (the effect on the audience). Everyone had words to add. Later in writing they pursued this question: In what ways did the activity alter or enhance your understanding of the passage or reading itself? You may discuss your own work or work of your peers.

6-drawing-passages-232x300 — Which strengths?

For the assignment the students chose a passage from their reading to draw and provide ‘a visual reading of the passage’. The examples below are from three different sections of the text we were reading at the time (The Odyssey). One student wrote later that the assignment was the most difficult of the unit “because we had to draw a picture of what was going on in the chapter and I didn’t really have a good understanding of the chapter that we had to draw which made it tough.”

–James Shivers

Cultivating the Desire to Write: Teacher and Students Journaling Together

Kindergartener journaling in Daron Cyr's class — Kindergartener journaling in Daron Cyr’s class

What if kids were exposed to writing in the same way a trailer exposes us to a movie that isn’t out yet? How do we create that feeling of anticipation, so that rather than force-feeding our lessons, we are quenching their thirst to communicate?

At the Brennan Rogers Magnet School in New Haven, Daron Cyr sits with her twenty-five kindergarteners on the rug, gazing up at a Smartboard image of Renoir’s painting The Umbrellas. Daron says, “Remember, we read a painting like we read a book.” She tells them to take a Think Minute: “Our eyes are on the painting. I want to know what you see, but also tell me the story that you see. Put your thumbs up when you’re ready.”

The children take turns sharing their thoughts about the painting. They focus on the weather, the characters, the details, what’s going to happen next. After a while Daron asks them to get their sketch journals. They make choices about where to sit, what art materials to use, and whether to copy the painting or make a picture of something the painting made them think of from their own lives. There is no scribbling, there are no blank pages, and the noise in the room is from the kids talking about their pictures, sharing and building vocabulary: pre-writing at its best. I record their quiet chatter in my own journal: “These are the ladders on the playground, and this is where the water goes down the slide.” “It was raining and I saw a rainbow.” “She’s wearing her party dress.” At the end, they share their work by having a Gallery Walk.

If you’ve tried this kind of lesson – especially with a challenging class of 25 four- and five-year olds – you may know how easily it can fall apart (I certainly do). Afterwards, my burning question for Daron was, “How did you introduce their journals to them?” She picked up her own journal, saying, “I started by sharing mine.” Before giving her students their own, Daron spent weeks enthusiastically showing her kids pages of drawings and writing from her own journal. She also uses her journal in class, to scribe what her students say to her, often reading their words back to them. By the time Daron gave them their own journals, “they were so excited. They knew how important they were.”

"Capturing the every day" from Daron's journal — “Capturing the every day” from Daron’s journal

"Playground" from a kindergartener's journal — “Playground” from a kindergartener’s journal

By sharing her journal with her students, Daron is teaching the most important message to children about writing: that their thinking can be captured, recorded, and shared. This is giving her tiny students the most important ingredient for writing: the desire and anticipation to be a part of the writing world.

Do you have experiences with a sketch journal to share? Please post in comments!

Thoughts of a Donkey

Our current exhibition, Sculpture by Nicola Hicks, lends itself to storytelling. Check out the podcast interview between the artist and 9 year old Eva Heitmann Levenson to get a sense of how the objects resonate with young people. They talking about living with animals, sculpting with hay, how to start a drawing, and much much more. It’s a great discussion about working throug the creative process.

We have also created a gallery guide with drawing and writing exercises based on the interviews so you and your students can join the conversation. Please let us know what you come up with!

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We abstract from letters, worlds.

A salient feature of strong reading is ‘picturing’, a fostering of words to create a visual terrain in our heads. We stroll along in a story, adding detail after detail, slowly shaping, ‘drawing’, or seeing a room, a chair, and conversation. We hear the words in what we imagine. We abstract from letters, worlds. A process in time. A skill in need of practice. As teachers we want to cultivate this participation, this move from letters on the page to figures in our minds.

How might a visual activity bring to light the power of words, the power of participation? Even in the 19^th Century in our School Readers and Primers we wove together words and images, picturing and story, seeing and telling. Here’s one example from a Appletons’ School Readers Third Primer (1887).

Continue reading We abstract from letters, worlds.

Point of view

This is how I saw today.

This is how you saw.

We experimented with point of view.

Donald Graves wrote, “When you use your hand to see, you will encounter your life differently.” Can you find a way to see the familiar, the everyday this weekend? Feel free to add your photos and drawings to the comments section.

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