Establishing a Pattern of Making Meaning in the Classroom

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This week I visited the third grade classrooms at the Read School in Bridgeport, CT to coach teachers and students in Visual Literacy. The goal was to introduce a pattern of making meaning through these three steps: 1. visual experience; 2. picture-making; 3. writing. All the while, the underlying goal is to get them to slow down and focus, so that they can recognize their own thoughts and stories, and develop their writing voices. This pattern of talking about art, drawing, and writing (in that order) inspires them to make connections to their own lives.

As phones, computers and over-scheduled lives monopolize more and more of our students’ time, the practice of making meaning seems to need our instruction. The good news is, children are thirsty for this kind of self-awareness, and are thrilled to discover that they have so many experiences which are worth writing about.

I began in each class by talking about why I draw before I write. I shared my own journal, reading a piece which started with a sketch of a pair of scissors and led to my writing a memory piece about my mother sewing. The idea was that the drawing, in this case, is not for show, or for beauty; we are drawing like scientists draw: to explore, and to pay attention to the world and to our thoughts.

Then, we established the pattern we will practice to make meaning of our own thinking:

A Wooded River Landscape with Fisherman by James Arthur O'Connor
A Wooded River Landscape with Fisherman by James Arthur O’Connor
  1. Visual experience: Discussing a work of art as a class (this painting is on the YCBA website (www.britishart.yale.edu/collections) is an opportunity to: a) focus our eyes and minds; b) share vocabulary and prior knowledge; c) build community.

3rd grade copy of O'Connor paintingcarolinas-pic-3rd-gr-read-sch

2. Picture-making: The drawings above were both done in response to the O’Connor painting. Their choice was to either copy the painting itself (left) or to draw something it made them think of from their own lives (right). Both choices give the student the time to reflect, explore detail, and make meaning.

3. Write: Students can have a hard time transitioning from drawing, where they often feel comfortable, to writing, where they often don’t. But these students are predominantly bi-lingual, and easily understood my explanation that their writing is really just a translation of their drawings. This is where they explore their ability to share their thinking and to develop their writing voices. I wrote their choices for writing on the board:

  • Imagine you are in your picture. Describe what you would see, hear, smell, feel…help me to see your picture with your words.
  • Tell a story about your picture. Pretend it is on “pause,” and describe what happens when you press “play.”
  • Your choice: a poem, a letter, etc. about your picture.

Yadeslie’s poem (choice 1), as read to me:

“If I was in the picture/I would feel the water/and feel the bark of the tree/and hear the leaves crack together/and hear the birds chirping/and I would smell the fresh air and the leaves/and touch the leaves and touch the grass.”

Caroline, (choice 2), wrote about her memory with her uncle, saying that “the tree feels wind in the air.” When I read her piece to my husband, he said it reminded him of Wallace Stevens’ line from Of Mere Being: “The wind moves slowly in the branches.” I will be sure to share that poem with them next time I see them, and point out how similar their writing is to Stevens.

Angie (choice 3) decided to describe her process, which was so helpful to me as a teacher and learner:

“When I drew my picture I thought that it was just sand and chairs and water. But then the teacher said to pretend it is a video. I put it on pause and then I played it. The first thing I hear is birds flying everywhere. I was running in the sand. The sun was shining. It smelled like the sea. I saw a sea star. It felt bumpy…it looked orange. I felt the wind blowing through my hair.”

–Darcy Hicks

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The Visual Word

Having established a journal practice in class, I found multiple ways of using it for day to day assignments.  One advantage of the journal is archival.  Students begin with their work at the beginning of the year and keep adding to the pages as the year progresses.  They can look back, refer to their previous work, re-read and use as a source. Students have a record of their ongoing learning, an archive.

The assignment here was to place image work along side their word-work. I don’t do this with every set of vocabulary words.  As a visual literacy strategy, the word and the understanding spill into the experience of learning. Later, the student can look back and ‘see’ what they know. As is the case with drawing and designing, they often feel the urge to re-vise both.  I ask the students for context, part of speech, definition, an example, and a visual.

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Students learn words live in contexts with a narrative.  Students create a unique iconography and links outside the text. The word then has a visual component along side a link outside the reading.  Since the goal is practice and exploration, I can look at their work as a process of knowing and be flexible in my assessments. As their language use expands from ongoing practice in various modalities, students find more nuanced ways of communication. As their journal becomes an archive they see a residue of their growth or even see places where change is necessary. They continue to learn on their own.

–James Shivers

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?

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“[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”.

Version 2

“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”.

Version 2

“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.”

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“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.”

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

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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

Exploring Sculpture Through a Variety of Media by Hallie Cirino

We were learning the phoneme for “qu”, and thought that we could introduce the idea of “quadrangles” and do some shape exploration. After a search on the YCBA Collection website, we found Barbara Hepworth’s “Four Rectangles with Four Oblique Circles”, the perfect sculpture for our needs.

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We viewed the sculpture “larger than life” on our SmartBoard screen. Here are some of the children’s comments:

“It looks like a family.” -Dutch

“It’s a metal pig.” -Jack

“The circles look like windows.” -Luke

“The rectangles are made out of rock.” -Esme

The children also had questions:

“Who made it?” -William

“What is it made out of?” -Harleaux

“How did she make the holes?” -Cassie

“What’s it called?” -Levi

So, we “asked Google” about it and we were VERY surprised to find a children’s book with the sculpture featured on the front cover! (Amazon Prime, thank you for your prompt delivery!)

Look! Look! Look! at Sculpture

When the book arrived two days later, we eagerly read it, and the children wanted to try the paper sculpture ideas that were inside:

paper sculptures

We decided to explore more media options for sculpture. My co-teacher, Maria, bought some fabulous natural clay. It was the children’s first experience using this material. As Jack was working with it, his finger accidentally poked through the middle of his clay lump. “Hey, that’s what she did,” remarked Jack, pointing at the Hepworth. In a few minutes, Jack had done this:

Jack's sculpture

Maria and I turned to each other and knew that we wanted the kids to sketch the Hepworth as well. We decided to introduce yet another new medium, charcoal. Most of the children started their sketches with pencil, and then added shading and coloring with the charcoal. What a happy mess!

class sketches Hepworth sculpture William sketches sculpture charcoal sketch Lukecharcoal renderings

Naturally, we couldn’t resist trying sculpting (and eating) with chocolate:

Harleaux and Levi sculpt chocolate chocolate sculptures

We also did sand sculpting and even pancake sculpting! The idea of learning about quadrangles organically lead us to so many new, enriching experiences.

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”.
B1984.6.3We 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.

bird and egg 2

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.

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  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.

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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.

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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.

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.

Garrowby Hill by David Hockney
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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!