Strategies
Forming Effective Questions and the Observational Discussion Method
The foundation of this unit lies in the ability of the instructor to formulate a line of questioning that direct students to remark upon, analyze and subsequently, apply historical context to selection paintings, as a group and individually. This method is primarily derived from careful observation of Dr. Tim Barringer's seminar, Paul Mellon Professor of History of Art at Yale University.
This method begins with simple observation, weaving biographical and historical context throughout as students make comments. Often, the beginning question sets are as simple as, "What is going on here?," "What do you see?" or "What do you notice?". Ideally, the teacher will move students up the ladder of Bloom's taxonomy to such questions as "How does the author feel about his/her subjects?" or "What can this work tell us about the time period?". For further explication on forming effective questions and scaffolded questioning techniques, see the three resources listed in the Bibliography for Teachers.
It is important to be positive in the reception of student comments, gently ignoring or discounting those that are not valid, as well as, providing an appropriate amount of time for students to respond. Pausing for several seconds (ten to fifteen is suggested) and allowing for silence and think time is a skill that every teacher must learn to master, albeit a difficult and, sometimes, awkward task.
The teacher should be well versed in the critical reception of the pieces selected for use. In the section entitled Suggested Paintings, a brief synopsis is provided for each work. However, it is highly recommended that any educator using this method spend a fair amount of time researching the history of the artist and the painting, in anticipation of any and all questions from students.
A Framework for Looking at Art
Triangles and Rectangles
More often than not, genre paintings of the nineteenth century use a "visual encoding of hierarchy and exclusion". 14 Richard Caton Woodville's War News from Mexico (Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, 1848) provides excellent fodder for this type of discussion and is suggested as a beginning image to use for students to engage in the Observational Discussion Method. Woodville's work superimposes a series of rectangles seated inside one another (rectangular newspaper, inside porch, inside frame), as well as the triangulation of subject, in which those at the tip of the pyramid (white males) are visually higher than the black and female characters, relegated to the outer edges of the work.
Furthermore, the white female is presented at a window listening in, whereas the African-Americans are seated outside, demonstrating the ostracism of the race deemed by the whites at the center of the painted have placed upon them. In her study on American genre paintings, Elizabeth Jones asserts: "It seems to accurate to say that genre pictures in the antebellum United States encouraged viewers to invest in social hierarchies, in their convictions that certain 'others' in the community were or should be revealed as deficient" 15. This is very clearly laid out in Woodville's painting.
Tracing the Gaze
A second way that artists encode their work is by connecting characters through demonstrative gazes. For instance, in Eyre Crowe's Slaves Waiting for Sale: Richmond, Virginia (Private Collection, 1861), one notices many of the figures gaze out the door, anxiously awaiting word from the white men standing in the doorway, presumably to call them to after purchase. The mother with the child in her lap gazes down, demonstrating a mixture of pride and, perhaps, fear that she may be separated from her offspring. The white men do not look at the slaves waiting, as if demonstrate their lack of acknowledgement of the personhood of their captives. Lastly, the woman with the red scarf wrapped around her head looks upwardly proudly, demonstrating either the lifting of the eyes to Providence, her own willful pride or some combination therein.
Spheres of Male and Female
Additionally, in Crowe's painting, mentioned directly above, the men and women are relegated to separate roles. The women sit on a bench with the children, whereas, the only black male sit alone, separate from the other. This mirrors the social hierarchy of the time in which men and women were thought to inhabit separate spheres, not to intermingle with one another. Women's work, as it were is the arena of the housekeeping, cooking and child rearing, whereas men were expected to work outside and complete strenuous physical labor. Of course, it is well documented that slave women were also sent to work in the field quite often, but as remarked earlier, genre painting worked to reinforce the ideals of the time period more so than the realities.
These same assertions can be observed in Woodville's War News From Mexico, where the woman sit safely inside, while the men are carousing outside on the porch. It is well documented that the black peoples of America "had no acknowledged participatory voice in American constituency, but they had an economic role and social presence that demanded attention from those who did…women, too, of all social classes, both black and white were an 'other'." 16
Use of Light and Illumination
Similarly, light and illumination within painting are used to assert hierarchies and demonstrate social position. Again, in reference to War News From Mexico, the woman sits inside, her face shaded and darker than the men on the porch. Upon first glance, she is hardly visible in the work. Additionally, the African-Americans have shadow cast upon them as well, sitting in the margins of the painting. The men's faces are brightly illuminated, with the standing man, presumably reading the paper at the forefront and well lit clearly showing him as the dominant figure in the rendering. Boime extensively discusses the dichotomy of black versus white in the opening chapter of his book, The Art of Exclusion. He argues and illustrates this with numerous examples in which "artists' contribution in the nineteenth century to the racial mythologies built around differences in skin color and physical features of subordinate peoples". This is definitively the case in many of the genre paintings suggested for use in this unit.
Collaborative Group Work
At several points throughout the unit, students will be invited to work with one another during classroom activities. A prominent idea behind collaborative student learning allows for students to interact on a peer-to-peer level and potentially communicate ideas about the subject of study in a manner different from that of the teacher. For low-level learners the benefit lies in direct and specific feedback that is sustainably longer and more intense than a teacher could give any single student in a normal period. For higher-level learners, understanding and synthesis is encouraged when they are "teaching" another student information that they have comprehended. Teaching someone else is the number one activity that encourages thought synthesis and idea analysis.
Jigsaws take information, spilt it up in three to ten groups and require the students in each group to become experts on their bit of knowledge and teach it back to the class. Students who are watching each presentation take notes or fill out a worksheet to retain and record all of the "pieces" with the idea that when students have all information the puzzle will become clear. Jigsaws are useful in a variety of settings.
Another variation of a grouping or "information chunking" activity that require collaboration amongst students is the more traditional station rotation. In this exercise, student groupings travel between multiple stations, each with a piece or specific topic of information related to the whole. The exercise is the summarized by individually answering a writing prompt which ties together the elements of the different stations to gauge student understanding and mastery of the material.
Integrating 21 st Century Skills
There is no denying the desperate need for schools and their curricula to adapt to the ever-changing proliferation of technological devices, applications and services. Any educator would be remiss to deny the legitimacy of communication modes that are becoming integral parts of the society that students will enter into a few short years. Integrating high technology skills into the curriculum is of dire necessity. One way to integrate these skills is through the use of Twitter, explained below.
The takeaway here is the importance and necessity to engage with students in a way that will reach them, but also will prepare them for the world ahead of them, which is becoming run by demands of social networks and immediate user-feedback models. Any educator unwilling to embrace and mold these new and versatile avenues to the needs of the classroom is performing a disservice to their students. Teaching students how to gain (correct and accurate) knowledge is as important as the knowledge itself.
The Case for Twitter in the Classroom
Historically, cell phones have been banished from the classroom and Internet censorship abounds in public high schools. Instead, I propose that students are not only allowed to use cell phones in class, they are encouraged and trained to do so. This strategy is a bit subversive but definitely worthy of consideration to create real appeal to the learners. Progressive schools and teachers are beginning to use Twitter to post homework assignments, communicate test dates and other pertinent or interesting information that benefits the student population. In a world that is more and more wired, it crucial to give explicit instruction about positive and safe online persona building. Twitter provides a place to do this work as well.
On the surface, Twitter may seem as if it is simply another social media outlet. However, upon closer examination there are practical applications that lend legitimacy to education. For instance, when writing on Twitter (called "tweeting") one is bound to 140 per message. This constraint forces students to focus on brevity and concision in their writing. Hashtags ("#") are used as summary and key word tags for the tweet; this helps students to focus their writing by focusing them to summarize and direct the main intentions of their tweet. To add, 21 st Century Learning is about multiple literacies and the ability between the different types. Students can use Twitter to gain confidence in their own literacy without a doubt.
While authentic real-time interaction is the general aim of this strategy, some teachers may find the idea of setting students free into cyberspace as an anxiety-inducing unrealistic consideration. Students can create private, school-only accounts if the teacher fears students personal Internet usage habits and connection following them to school. If technology is limited or not democratically distributed, students may complete a hardcopy tweet on a scrap piece of paper, indicating their name, creative "@" handle, message and summary hashtag(s). The idea is to engage and check for student learning and the only given is that the form this takes in each classroom will be unique.
Appealing to Multiple Modalities
This unit seeks to appeal to the multiple learning modalities within a classroom. This is important as it gives students who learn from one modality more readily than the other will have equal moments of access to engage with the paintings presented. To add, the Internet is a cache of all types of clips, sound bytes and videos related to content, easily accessible within a few keystrokes, which will appeal simultaneously to visual and auditory learners.
For the visual learners in the classroom, this unit abounds with work to look at and observe. Additionally, the summative assessment described below appeals to the visual and artistic, as students must demonstrate their understanding through photographic recreation of a painting. As a bonus, this is helpful in a classroom environment, as busy hands are hands that are out of trouble. Additionally, in terms of collaborative work, many students who are disruptive will find themselves cooperating and focused when events where they can participate in a tangible way is present.
Formative Assessment
Formative assessment, in opposition to summative, or final, assessment, is a way to check for student understanding. Formative assessments widely vary in type and formality. Some can be as simple as posing questions or statements to the group of students asking them to respond with thumbs up/thumbs down (agree/disagree) or rank their opinion or response in the "Fist of Five" style, in which the pupils hold up a corresponding number of fingers (one is lowest; five is highest) to gauge interest, understanding or express opinions. More formal formative assessment can vary from a brief exit ticket to a longer more structured written constructed response.
Inquiry Based Approach Book acquired to read and summarize. Distill into one paragraph.
Project Based Learning Book acquired to read and summarize. Distill into one paragraph.
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