The Illustrated Page: Medieval Manuscripts to New Media

Writing

The first rule of thumb is to avoid, if at all possible, writing about something you simply don’t like or don’t understand.⁶

Since this writing unit will be presented at the beginning of the school year, the first part of the unit will focus on sentence syntax and sentence structure.  A major part of developing students’ writing will depend on their knowledge of basic grammar skills.  According to the Arizona State English Proficiency Standards, students need to know the basic grammar skills, such as being knowledgeable with the 8 parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, preposition, conjunctions, and interjections.  Adjectives modify a noun or pronoun, and answer which one, what kind, and how many.  Articles, comparative, superlative, and age describe which one.  Different kinds of adjectives include colors, sizes, and shapes.  Numbers describe how many.

Many students come to fourth grade with basic sentence writing skills.  As basic as they may be, I need to keep in mind that the students come to my classroom with some skills that can be built on.  This will be the opportunity to develop their syntax and sentence structures.  Basic grammar skills include the ability to write a simple sentence with an article, a noun, and a verb.  Students will be introduced to adjectives as a vocabulary development.  Large, big, small, and soft are all the adjectives the students know.  The goal is for students to use content adjectives that are relevant to the object they are describing.  Writing also requires students to be knowledgeable about syntax order (English word order rules).

To become a good descriptive writer, a student must learn about the materials, processes, and tools for writing.  Language is the material of writing.  A student must master grammar and syntax to become successful in writing.  In this unit, students will be writing about Native American art, so they will also need to incorporate the visual part of writing.  Incorporating the visual part of writing requires a student to change their way of thinking about writing, but they need to keep their audience in mind while writing.  Students need to be able to organize new knowledge in their minds in accordance with how they perceive and view reality. (Richardson) 

Why write about art? Writing about art clarifies our response to the work.  Was it interesting? Was it exciting? Was it frustrating? Why did we feel about the artwork like this?

Before any of my fourth graders can answer any of these questions, they need to be presented with artwork that is familiar or easy to understand such as still life or a landscape art.  These types are work are excellent for beginning writers, and students will most likely gravitate towards them because they are so simple.  However, because it is so basic in their application, it might not have enough content to have any analytical response.⁶

In my unit I will select art from Shonto Begay. First of all, the artworks are vibrant.  Secondly, his art is an interpretation of Navajo culture.  These are two things students need to show interest in artwork.  Because it is about their culture, their ability to generate words that describe the art will grow quickly.

When writing a descriptive paper about art, there are advantages to comparing two or more art pieces.  First, it allows the writer to explore new ideas and new perceptions as the writer examines the art pieces side by side, especially if they are related in some ways.  Other advantages are that a writer is able to compare the quality or effect that would otherwise be hard to see if you are only focusing on one art piece.  Same conclusions can be reached by comparing two or more arts that are similar styles of the same time or era.  Sometimes, comparative writing allows the writer to see the development and progression of the artists.⁶

Ryan Singer’s “Sheep is Good Food” and Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Condensed Tomato Soup” are two examples of arts I will use to teach descriptive writing.  Comparing and contrasting two pop artists from two different generations and different cultures depicting the same subject matter will help students with perspective.  There is a lot of room for conversations and discussion in this unit.

Descriptive writing will eventually transition to narrative writing.  Narrative writing at fourth grade include creating a story with characters and setting. Elements of beginning narrative writing utilizes beginning, middle, and ending as the plot format.

Eventually, I want students to be able to use contemporary art at a medium to create a narrative piece.  In this section, I want to use art that has a message.  The narrative may be simple but the idea is for students to slowly study the art and voice their impressions.  The challenging part would be to use the message to write a narrative that relates to the art piece.