Teaching Strategies
The teaching strategies will vary greatly throughout the lessons to ensure all learning styles are met. The students will create an interactive blog to record their projects. This will be a record of their work; our district has implemented a new evaluation instrument called Analysis of Student Work to show measurable student growth. Having all of their work in one place will make it easier to gather evidence of growth.
Read Aloud
One strategy that I will use to introduce this unit will be to read aloud many poems, so students will see and hear different poems. I will have handouts of Williams Carlos Williams's poems "The Great Figure," "Flowers by the Sea," "A Red Wheelbarrow" and "Blizzard." The third grades need poems that are fun to read and engaging. I will read aloud poems; I will ask students to memorize a small poem such as the one I ask them to memorize about primary colors. It goes like this:
Red, yellow, blue
I hear you
Students will record themselves reading a poem. As a class we will annotate a poem and use interpretation questions to better understand the poem.
Technology
Technology will be used as a tool to engage student learning. Students respond well to technology because of the overwhelming use of it in our society today. When using the technology to write a blog and reflect on their work, students will begin to understand the implications of posting on the internet. I will encourage the students to think about what they say before they say it! Blogging is a teaching method that creates meaningful reflections, incorporates reading and writing and the ability to share with others. When students produce something on a technological device they seem to absorb it more easily because students today are modern learners. The best teaching strategies are the ones in which students do not realize they are learning. Students seem to retain the information much more easily this way.
Integration
This unit will use cross disciplinary teaching strategies. There will be an integration of literacy and visual arts taught throughout this unit. The students are familiar with this type of integration; it is used throughout the district and our individual school. Classrooms like this require planning and cooperation. Creating integrated lessons gives art education greater visibility in the school and community because it creates a hands-on activity related to content area instruction. Teachers create more rigorous and meaningful lessons by working together. Modeling partnerships for students encourages stronger peer relationships. As teachers, displaying collaboration in their classroom will set an expectation for students to work together and communicate more effectively.
Visual Thinking Skills
I will grab student's attention by demonstrating visual thinking strategies. I will show students a copy of the painting by Stuart Davis Combination Concrete #2. As the facilitator I will ask three questions. What is going on in the picture? What do you see that makes you say that? What more can we find? 7 Students are encouraged to back up their answers with visual evidence. The facilitator ensures that every response is heard by pointing to what is mentioned as a student answers, and the facilitator will paraphrase what is said. This approach validates the students answer and lets them know that there is not a wrong answer to these questions. Art is how you as the viewer see the piece. Throughout this activity the facilitator/teacher is never the expert, only there to guide students as they look at the artwork.
Another similar strategy is called I Wonder. The teacher asks an open ended question What do you see? Students will give the answer in their words facilitator/teacher will acknowledge every answer. This will create a safe supported student-centered environment. The next question is I wonder what about the work? Once again the facilitator/teacher repeats back the answer given in the students own words. Both techniques keep students engaged, let them provide their own answers, and let them explore the art at their own pace.
A possible modification to this technique could involve a student writing down the first word that comes to mind when he or she is viewing the painting, then use that word as the first word of his or her sentence, next put the sentence on large paper on the table. This paper would continue being passed around the table until the group has constructed a poem. All three techniques have students engaged in deconstructing a painting on their own without teacher direct instruction.
Demonstration
Throughout this unit I will review previous learned material; this is due to the forty-five minute blocks meeting only once a week. A week is a long time between lessons. All activities are modeled first to demonstrate the art technique; students have greater success during the activity when they see examples. After every visual poetry activity, students will post to interactive blog. This will give students a chance to reflect on their art. Posting to their blog serves as a backchannel for students to develop collaborative conversations they may not be able to have face-to-face.
Art Talk
Throughout the school year I encourage my students to speak using art vocabulary. I call this Art Talk. I feel strongly that students should use art words to analyze art, interpret art and reflect on their own artwork. As I set this expectation year after year I see the students use the words correctly not just in the art room but in their classrooms.
Word Wall
The word wall that is posted in the art room is divided into modes of creative expression such as clay, fiber arts, drawing, painting, and sculpture with art terminology listed under each category. Vocabulary is an important teaching strategy. I start every year with a word wall lesson specific for each grade level. I continually point out the art word that I am concentrating on in the lesson. Students need to be aware that words have different meanings within different content areas. I will also hang the poetry anchor charts throughout the visual poetry unit so students will see the similarities in the vocabulary. I set this expectation in the art room at the beginning of the year while in my room the students will speak using the protocol of art talk. I will remind them to use their art words. This sets an expectation that visual arts matter!
Differentiate Learning
Differentiated learning strategies look different in the art room than in general education classrooms. I encourage creative chatter. Having only 45 minutes proves difficult to help all 25 students. I have 3-4 students assigned to each table. Peer assistance is available at every table because when I assign seats I put at least one student who is able to work cooperatively per group. I frequently roam the classroom to assist students with more support. When a student asks for help in the art room, he or she most likely wants you to draw for them; I solve that problem by drawing with the eraser and not the pencil. The eraser technique assists them by giving them confidence in their own artistic abilities.
Reflection
Rubrics are a strategy that I often include in my lessons. A rubric focuses on a specific skill and places accountability on the student. I find it easy to measure a student's performance through rubrics. I have students glue their rubrics on the back of their art so students and I can easily see their performance over the school year.
Another strategy for reflection is called two stars and one wish and it is conducted after a student completes his/her work. The students answer two questions on the back of their work. The questions are: What two things did you like best about your work? And What is it that you might change about your work? I lead a discussion on the answers that are acceptable to these questions. The expectation in my classroom is while discussing works of art they must cite supporting information about the piece of art. I want students to be aware of how the viewer analyzes art and that it is an opinion of the viewer there is not a right or wrong answer. My instructional goals for using this strategy are to strengthen public speaking skills, show evidence of answers, and learn to give constructive comments.
The reflection strategy will also be incorporated into their interactive blog on the iPads. Each student will create their own interactive blog to express their thoughts on the unit, to reflect on what they did and comment on the blog posts of their peers, this will be continued throughout the visual poetry unit.
Games
I will use games as a strategy with this unit. Students learn to use their critical thinking skills to solve problems through game play. Students will read aloud a poem; I will display it on the white board then students will come up with a new title for the poem. I will place different poem titles on tables for students to create their own poem using the titles. In this activity, students work together to solve a problem. I will also give them suggested websites for poetry games such as Shel Silverstein's poetry fun and games site, http://www.shelsilverstein.com/.
Classroom Activities
In the art room, I will start by introducing visual poetry. I will put a concept map on the white board using the word "poetry". Students will come to the board one-by-one and surround the word poetry with words that come to mind when the word poetry is mentioned. I anticipate the students having some prior knowledge of poetry, especially due to the fact that this unit will overlap with their general classroom instruction. They also have the expectation in my class they will have an active and engaging lesson.
Lesson One: Intro to Visual Poetry
Goal: Use the language of visual arts to communicate effectively. After discussing the word "poetry" students will have a chance to view a handout with examples of poems in which we look at together. I will read the poems aloud to determine which ones excite the students and which ones do not. I will be able to tell which poems my students are interested in by their reaction to the readings. I will discuss how the creation of poetry is similar to how artists create a painting. I will point out that the word wall for art and the word wall for poetry share some of the same words. I will introduce some of the shared elements found in visual arts and poetry such as line, white space, repetition, movement, and pattern. I will distribute examples of paintings and examples of poems for each table. I will challenge each table to identify a pattern in the painting and then a pattern in a poem. I will have each table continue identifying elements of art that are shared with poetry. This activity is interactive and engaging at the same time. Overall, I want the students to see that poetry is an artful language.
Poets, like artists, are careful observers so another activity is for students to walk around the school and observe something within the school that no one else will observe and bring it back to share with their peers in the art room. It is funny to listen to what each person observes, it can be quite eye opening. This activity will express to students that poetry and art are about observing the world with new eyes.
The next activity will be to go to the school library and look at the spine of books on the shelf. I want students to put titles of the books together in a poem. Students will work in pairs and construct a poem out of book titles. I want them to draw a visual to go with the poem they created. There will be some amusing pictures created from this activity. The students will then share their poems with the class; this strategy is called think-pair-share.
To incorporate technology into the unit students will create their interactive blog using some pictures of their work and poems created from the beginning lesson and from their general classroom. I will demonstrate how I use my interactive blog and I will assist them in putting their site together step-by-step. We will talk about how everyone will be able to see and comment on the site. The blog will create a sense of community by building better communication between students. Students will update the blog regularly from school and home. We will review the difference between a nice comment and an inappropriate comment. I will discuss the idea of a sandwich: one positive comment then a negative comment then a positive comment and sandwich them together.
Lesson Two: Stuart Davis
Goal: Create art from realistic sources of inspiration. This lesson will be about the painting Combination Concrete #2. I will share the history of Stuart Davis. Students enjoy hearing about an artist's life. During the discussion of Stuart Davis's life I will talk about some of his friends and make a connection to a poet named William Carlos Williams. As a class we will go through some poems written by Williams. Students will take turns reading each stanza out loud to the class. We will talk about the describing words in each poem and what images come to mind.
I will have students write down the words from Davis's painting, drawing, curve, new, and go slow. I will challenge my students to create a poem using these words. The poem could be about urban life, what they see in the painting, or signs. Students will organize the poem using the words from the painting as the first words of the poem or within the poem. I will have students write their poems using free verse. Free verse is poetry that has no rules. Students will write poetry in their general classroom in different styles when they come in the art room they want more freedom of expression. This activity will let them connect to the painting in front of them, hopefully making this a memory.
As a whole group students will look at Davis' painting using a teaching strategy called Visual Thinking Skills. Implementing this strategy is easy; a teacher begins by asking an open ended question, What do you see? The students will answer the question then the teacher will ask another question What do you see that makes you say that? and What more do you see? 8 trying to pull out more information about the painting without the teacher stating the facts about the art. Students are coming up with their own supported answers. The students learn by inquiry and active listening.
There is another Visual Thinking Strategy that could be used with this activity it is called I wonder… The facilitator/teacher asks the question What do you see? The next question is I wonder what about the image? Students answer the questions this begins a critical conversation about the work. The I wonder.. strategy works better on abstract pieces than narrative works. The second question of the What do you see? strategy has a direct response suggesting that there is evidence in the painting that tells a story.
There is another way to make this activity fun. First, define parts of speech noun and adjective then look at a painting. Next, list on the white board all of the nouns that describe the painting then all of the adjectives describing the painting. After the list is assembled on the board, each table will create a poem using those words. The tables will share their newly created poems on their blog.
Lesson Three: Match-up Poetry and Pictures
Goal: What happens to the meaning when visual image and written text combine together? I will define Ekphrastic Poetry. Poems create mental pictures in your mind while you are reciting them. A great example is the poem "The Weary Blues" by Langston Hughes and his book cover of the same name. I will display many famous paintings around the classroom along with poems that may or may not go with the paintings. The paintings will be both familiar and not so familiar. Students will mix and match the poems and paintings. The same images and poems will be on their tables they will come back to their tables and put them together to create their ekphrastic poem. This interactive activity will demonstrate a student's ability to look for visual clues in the paintings to complete the match-up. This will enhance a student's ability to observe their surroundings similar to how an artist and poet observe the world.
An extension for this lesson will be for students to go outside and take pictures then come in and create a poem about their picture. I want student to see how the meaning of the picture changes when they add text.
Poetry Café Celebration
There will be a student-centered Poetry Café set-up in the Art Room as a culminating event to show off their poetry to their parents and the community. I will have the iPads set-up in the room so parents will be able to view their students' interactive blog. I will have Jazz music playing low in the background. Students will display their visual poetry around the room. Students will take turns reciting poetry individually and collaboratively in the front of the room.
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