Overview (Introduction)
The culture of today is a visual one. Between the advertisements everywhere we turn, Facebook movies, and the use of the Internet, my students are bombarded with imagery, and as a result connect best to my content when they are able to better visualize. Visualization is the most essential aspect of describing anything—but so many of my students look and do not see. Most of my students, in their daily activities, are not aware of their inner states, or how little control they have over their thoughts. They are so used to commotion; they lack the control to fully concentrate.
One way I can help my students to learn to stay more focused, as well as enhance their writing skills, is through ekphrasis—the dramatic description or representation of a visual work of art. Ekphrastic poetry is a genre of literature that requires writers to focus on a piece of art and write about it. When students are trained to look closely at works of art and reason about what they see, they are able to draw inferences about how history, culture and visual arts can influence each other.
There is strong and compelling evidence to suggest that learning to see and discover art promotes the ability to find meaning in imagery, which is the definition of visual literacy. To be visually literate means being able to analyze on many levels what you see in the world. Learning to see, interpret, and discuss works of art promotes overall critical thinking, insightfulness, and creativity—skills that can influence every part of life. 1
I have designed this unit for eleventh grade college–bound students in my American Literature class; however it can easily be adapted to any grade level. I chose this age group because they are already familiar with the terminology we will be using in this unit; but eventually I would like to extend the visual exercises for all of my students.
As the eleventh grade curriculum focuses on American literature, I feel the perfect complement for this unit will be F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America. We will explore the major characters and themes in the novel, along with "learning to look" activities, focusing on a number of art slides that tie in with the novel. Students will have the time to really sit quietly, relax, and look at the art, observing all of the details. We will also discuss the relationship between art and writing. Students will discover how writing can be a powerful means of engaging with images. By incorporating this art experience through writing, students not only learn to be careful observers, but they learn to articulate their thoughts and reactions to writing. Paintings and other art forms will inspire my students to create something new—poems that reflect both the painting and the student's engagement to think critically and "outside the box." This is the advantage of bringing visual art and writing together. The term for this genre is ekphrasis, a Greek word for the kind of description or representation of a work of art that has engaged writers for centuries. Students will be introduced to ekphrasis and study many examples before they create their own, based on a symbolic mask they make that represents a character and theme from the novel.
The participants in this teaching unit are students in one of the five schools in the Jefferson Union High School District in Daly City, a suburb next door to San Francisco. Our school has a student body of 1800 students, and is a community of diversity. A large number of immigrants have made Daly City their home. The Filipino population has grown more rapidly than any other group, and Filipino students comprise almost 60 percent of our population. A majority of the students come from working class and middle class families, and a lot of the students have part–time jobs. Most of the students are college–bound, but mixed in both reading and writing abilities; some are quite proficient, while others struggle. Classes are arranged heterogeneously, with Special Education and English Language learners. All staff members are CLAD (Cross Cultural, Language and Academic Learners) certified, which entitles the holder to teach non–speaking English learners. Almost all classes house 35 students, and meet for fifty–five minutes daily. Overall, they are a very responsive and friendly group of students.
Why Teach the Arts
The Arts are important for what they are. As symbol systems of culture, the arts are a language of thoughts. Just as the ability to use words can make sense of everyday experience, the images of art and the descriptions of poetry serve the same purpose. Through such artistic representations we share a common humanity. In "Every Child Needs the Arts," Charles Fowler, a spokesperson on behalf of the arts, stated:
The arts are symbol systems that permit us to give representation to our ideas, concepts and feelings in a variety of forms that can be 'read' by other people. The Arts were invented to enable us to react to the world, to analyze it, and to record our impressions so that they can be shared. 2
Artists show us new ways to see familiar things and how to interpret new situations and the subject at hand. Responding to art is about constructing and interpreting meaning. Because art is multi–layered and complex, it invites critical and creative thought, and invites multiple interpretations. Current literature supports the notion that the process of decoding, or interpreting, a work of art, can lend itself to the development of language arts skills.
The shift toward recognizing the arts as contributing to cognitive learning has been gradual. Howard Gardner's investigation into cognitive development as exhibited in learning the arts led him to his multiple intelligence theory (1973, 1983). Many other art education researchers, such as Perkins, Burton and Catterall, believe the transfer of learning from the arts to other subjects has justified the arts in education. Others believe that experiences with art can advance general education through higher order thinking skills. What is implicated in learning the visual arts – such as imagination, the ability to think critically, the ability to focus perception, and the ability to engage in divergent thinking– is thought to influence intellectual development in other disciplines (Arnheim).
Writing about art really serves a dual purpose. The arts not only provide inspiration for the writer, but also cause the viewer to slow down, analyze and respond to the work of art; actually to take the time to "see." When students are able to look beyond surface differences they are able to see the greater commonality of human experience. And what could be more useful in helping students make use of the multilayered ways we 'see' than through art and poetry?
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