observation – A Closer Look

Seeing Perspective – Part Two

Perspective is an essential narrative feature. Each page of a book, each scene with a character provides another way of seeing the story. In many texts, the narrative has recursive features of time and knowing. We see the story different when we have finished and look back. We see the story different when we are given another vantage point. We see the story from our perspective as we read.

Each perspective generates a narrative of seeing, feeling, and knowing. If this is the case, then the exercise of drawing a sculpted figure from different vantage points should generate unique insights (follow the link to see what the students drew). As with reading a narrative, we see what we are given and what we look for. So, I asked students to draw the image first and then describe the mood. The act of description calls forth their own knowledge and experience: How is this person standing? When I stand this way how do I feel? How have I seen this stance before? What does this stance communicate?

“[L]ost, lonely, depressed. It seems as if this man is outside and is alone and thinking to himself. He is in a situation (stuck) but doesn’t go for help. He is desiring something without reaching out”.

“Nonchalant. He is on his phone but it’s cold out so he has one hand in his pocket and is wearing a sweater and pants. He must have heard something so his head is turned in a casual way. He is not in any rush. Maybe he is waiting for a bus”.

“Confused, Pondering. Maybe he’s thinking. I watch this man, he’s thinking or looking for someone. He’s looking for me. He doesn’t know I’m right behind him”.

Each student brings their world to bear on their expression and interpretation. Students can discuss what they see and why with each other. Students can also look at the progression of their work. What did they think at first? How do the three perspectives construct a whole? Some students wonder why I would show the “same” object three times, suggesting nothing is different. This leads to further conversation and closer looking. What would we know if we only had one of these vantage points? A question like this brings the sense of perspective to the forefront.

But why do this exercise in an English class? Simply, it’s a story of reading. As we go through a book, we are building a sense of the story. The longer we read, the more we ‘see’, and soon, we are living with a story with various narrative strands linked. Each link has value. Some students will see this quickly. Others, will need more time. If we choose not to ignore this multiplicity, we allow change and growth to occur. Allowing room for the process of knowing and practicing this skill makes the classroom a rich environment of dialogue and discovery.

–James Shivers

Growing the Abstract – Part Two

If we think of abstraction as a practice, we open a way for students to build meaning with themselves in mind, negotiating moment by moment their inner and outer worlds. In an ongoing space of practice, they access and utitlize their own experience of story, viewing, memory and imagination. Their work then becomes a fusion of the old with the new embedded with creative and critical acts of knowing.

“The statue represents the balance between order and protection.”

“As I lay thinking I wonder how to get to the top. There are so many obstacles. I don’t know if I’ll even be able to do it. Once I get to the top should I…what should I do? Life is an obstacle that is hard to get past.”

“Life itself is very boring, but with a little twist and a little bit of personality, life can be something that is spectacular.”

Each student response was unique. The next day we had open sharing. Students read their work to the whole class or conversed one to one. Orderly chaos ensued: words and worlds, stillness and laughter filled the room. As we debriefed on the exercise, discussing why we did the assignment and how we felt, everyone realized that ‘growing’ the abstract opens the door for a seeing and making of the “spectacular”.

The full period was nearly over and we began collecting our bags and journals. Just before the bell rang– in that one quiet moment before we ended, one student asked with some interest, ‘What are we doing next?’

–James Shivers

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.

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.

Primarily Mondrian

Hallie Cirino, 5’s Teacher, CHT Preschool, Westport, CT

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:

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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.

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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:

But I Hate Reading & Writing

After many years in education, it has finally occurred to me that I really need to market the idea of reading and writing to my remedial reading 
students. Reading and writing has always been difficult for them and at the ripe old age of 9, they don't choose either as  free time activities.

Despite my encouragement of, “practice will make you better” or my pleas:“you’d never say this to your football (basketball/soccer/dance etc) coach," reading and writing remain on the NOT TO DO list for these children.

So, I decided that I would bring sketch books back to the reading room this year. My goal: Let the kids discover for themselves that they ARE creative and DO have great powers of observation and ideas. For the first 15 minutes of each reading class, the students sketch, write and share ideas.

Guess what??? They LIKE it! They are beginning to buy into the idea that they are smart…just in a different way from some of their peers.

Very quickly, after the first 3 sessions, I had students requesting sketching/writing time. In the beginning, I collected images from the YCBA collection, book illustrations, and online images from various art museums. I am storing them in what is becoming a rather large power point. Each slide is an image with several writing invitations.

Van Gogh: Shoes 1888

Students sketch and write for equal amounts of time.

JWMTurner; The Morning After Deluge 1843

Two important observations over the past month:

1) Kids get right to the writing. Not one student (grade 3-5) has uttered the dreaded words, “I don’t know what to write.” Or better yet, “How many sentences does this have to be?”

2) The kids are starting to notice that their writing is getting longer and more detailed. There is pride in their voices when they share. They are excited with the language they are using and making links to literature. They are applying figurative language and making inferences (and actually know what both of those terms mean now!)

Teacher note:

This takes very little planning. Just give students time and opportunity and they will amaze you and, more importantly, amaze themselves.

I sketch and write with my students to model and practice what I preach.

Animals in Art

The Yale Center for British Art has a vast collection of animal paintings, which you can easily access from the YCBA “animal art” collection search or view highlights here on our new “Animals in Art” Pinterest board. The YCBA also offers a guided tour with an “Animals in Art” theme where students will explore the many different ways and reasons animals are portrayed in art. By identifying and evaluating facial expressions, gestures, and other details, students practice observing details, describing what they see, and drawing conclusions. Look for more posts as we continue to share our vast collection with the Pinterest world!

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