Goals
My first goal is to teach students how to read and analyze an ekphrastic poem. First, I will teach them what a close reading is by demonstrating the process with them, then by practicing it with many different scaffolded techniques. This will build confidence and give me an opportunity connect the visual arts to poetry in my classes. Mark Rothko’s painting “Untitled” with Bobbi Katz’s poem “Lessons from a painting by Rothko” and Edward Hopper’s “Early Sunday Morning” with John Stone’s poem of the same title are the first and second pieces of artwork we will be looking at with the poems.
My next goal is to teach my fifth grade students how to analyze artwork. Because I have had my students for five years, they have had some exposure to this skill. When looking at a work (which could be their own, another student’s, or an artist’s they don’t know, including famous work) I ask them to use the four stages of response commonly used in art criticism: description, analysis, interpretation, and judgement.
My third goal is to teach students to write ekphrastic poetry by looking at selected famous artists’ work and creating our own poems about it. Throughout the unit students will be completing their own artwork. They will also be creating ekphrastic poetry about that work and one ekphrastic poem about a classmate’s work.
My last goal is to utilize therapeutic art skills to help lessen the impacts of trauma on affected students. I will do this by increasing their self-awareness in activities that give them opportunities to label and illustrate their feelings. This will allow them to connect their emotions to visuals and poems that will reinforce positive coping strategies. I will also have students utilize self-reflection over time to encourage the development of a positive self-concept that will aid in repairing compromised self-identities.
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