Introduction
A speaking picture 1 is a telling phrase that reminds us poetry can take many forms. The common thread between poetry and art is a heightened sense of observation. There is a connection between visual images (pictures) and written text (words): both involve the process of making something creative and transferring your thoughts to canvas or paper. Both poetry and art let us express feelings that may be hard to express any other way. Poets describe the scenery, the texture of an object, and perhaps the author's feelings with words on a page, whereas artists describe these by showing them with color, design, and brush strokes. Both poems and paintings create a sense of mystery and the viewer feels the need to deconstruct both in order to get into the mind of the artist or poet.
The idea of this unit is to see and understand the link between poetry and art. If we understand the elements that go into making art and poetry we will be able to effectively communicate with other disciplines. Reading is pivotal to a student's growth as a learner; if a teacher can encourage students to read small rhyming poems, students will read more. Reading short rhyming poems will give students the confidence to read more passages. The majority of my students struggle to read so any reading will reinforce the importance and pleasure of reading.
In this unit students will be introduced to Stuart Davis, an artist who combines elements of art and words in his paintings. One painting by Davis is a brightly colored canvas called: Combination Concrete #2 that hangs in the Yale University Art Gallery. Students will view paintings that have poems written about them as well as read poems that inspired paintings, a style of poetry called Ekphrasis. The unit is filled with activities such as analyzing poems/paintings, writing Ekphrastic poetry, blogging about their poems and playing poetry games, and as a culminating event, students will show off their hard work in a student-centered Poetry Café.
As I have developed this unit for elementary art students, I wanted to find an artist who epitomizes the "speaking picture" as referred to in an essay called "Accessibility Blues" by Christina Pugh. 2 She refers to how a picture speaks to a viewer without needing words to get the message across. Stuart Davis is an artist that uses simple elements such as lines, repeating shapes, and color, and then adds words. My students will easily relate to his images because the paintings are brightly colored basic overlapping designs. Just imagine how strong the message would be by combining words and images all the while building the desire to read in your students.
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