Category: Personal Goals and Reflection on Placement

Week 2 – Integrated Arts Blog

This week our lecturers and inputs focused on visual art, justifying the arts, thinking is sculpting and the further concepts of drama techniques in lessons.

Firstly, thinking is sculpting is verbalising the visual art and how finding the meaning in imagery. When teaching children, compared to adults they do not have as much life experience, therefore their vocabulary can be more limited or they may not know what to convey when looking at an image, but by exposing them to different forms of art, children will start to apply what they have learned from constant exposure to television, newspapers, magazines and books to art. This preparation only allows them to deal easily with images that follow well-known conventions or are narrative in a traditional sense, not unpredictable ones nor those in which the story is hard to figure out (Phillip Yenawine 1997).

 

Justifying the Arts

“It is worth recognising that different art forms and even different works frequently have different intentions and effects; they can enthral, move, enlighten, inform, inspire, amuse, challenge, entertain or provoke.” (Fleming 2012 p19)

Firstly, in our lecture we looked at visual metaphors on a page of writing called ‘visible’, we were then to draw on the sheet to interoperate what we thought the text conveyed and to highlight metaphors. The aim of this as to show visible learning and describe thoughts and feelings on the page:

This strategy is to introduce children the thought of discussion through literacy by using specific words and drawing pictures that connect to them.

 

In our first input, we then looked at visual art and the different perceptions children may have when creating expressive art with ink and finger painting to create shapes:

As teacher’s, we need to show interest to all children’s different perceptions and ideas when looking at something as complex as expressive arts. Children may look at a finger painting and see multiple things such as butterflies or a tree that you may not see and being able to support that is a main quality a teacher should have when making an art lesson. If you can write you can draw, creativity is one of the core things that makes us human, we as teachers sometimes just need to help children realise that and help them connect with themselves. Engaging children in the expressive arts can allow them to communicate in potentially profound ways (Eisner 2002) and as Russell Bowie (2009 p5) points out: “Because the arts can embody and communicate emotions, ideas, beliefs and values, they can convey meaning through aesthetic forms and symbols and evoke emotive responses to life with or without words.”. This is the opportunity for us as teachers to communicate with our class and support open discussion so the children’s voices are heard.

 

The second input then continued from week 1 and looked at 5 strategies for drama activities which can be used when looking at images. We looked at pictures and based our ideas around them for creating a story. Firstly, we looked at the famous watercolour painting ‘Windows in the West’ by the Scottish artist Avril Paton. The strategies we used to explore this photo was:

 

Still Image – This strategy was to show to the rest of the class what we thought the residents of the tenement would be doing in this picture.

Narration – Acting out a scenario in the painting that is then commentated by a single person who tells the story and what is going on.

 

Our scenario was a mum and dad who were just being told that their daughter was pregnant and the mum and dad both step out one after the other and tell the class how they are feeling whether that is positive or negative. This lesson can help children’s understanding deepen on themes such as teen pregnancy, Scottish art and the wider world. It can also help promote children who are self-conscious or shy about drama and let them be involved in it without acting by themselves. Group work also promotes creating and presenting in a team and hearing other ideas that can create a great piece of improvised or planned art.

Both inputs link as they both convey the thinking is sculpting and providing children the freedom of expression through imagery and thought provoking art. Using different conventions such as narration and still image gives an expressive art strategy to teach children the importance of art and how using these, you can learn in depth knowledge about important subjects in the world.

 

References

• Eisner, E. (2002). The arts and the creation  of the  New Haven: Yale University Press
• Fleming, M. (2012) The arts in education: an introduction to aesthetics, theory and pedagogy. London:Routledge.
• Russell-Bowie D. (2009).  MMADD about  the  arts:  An introduction to primary  arts education.  Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education Australia
• Yenawine, P., 2013. Visual thinking strategies: Using art to deepen learning across school disciplines. Harvard Education Press.
• Alter, F., Hays, T. and O’Hara, R., 2009. The challenges of implementing primary arts education: What our teachers say. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 34(4), pp.22-30.

 

 

Week 1 – Integrated Arts Blog

The expressive arts are something that has always been embedded in me. When beginning this module, I was excited to see how it can be incorporated throughout education and the different theories behind it. “Creativity is just as important as literacy” which was conveyed by Sir Ken Robinson in a video that we watched in our lecture to begin the module. The ted talk which I watched completely later that day, spoke a lot to me and went into depth about the importance of creativity and giving the children the freedom to express themselves and as teachers we should not suppress it. Robinson also conveyed that as teachers: “The real role of leadership in education…is not and should not be command and control. The real role of leadership is climate control – creating a climate of possibility. If you do that, people will rise to it and achieve things that you completely did not anticipate and couldn’t have expected.” (Sir Ken Robinson 2007). This shows that as teachers we should embrace all the successes and failures that comes with expressive arts and it is all about the journey and the discovery of the child that can help them explore and discover what their idea of art is. Expressive arts should always be enjoyable and give the children a sense of freedom and it can also be used across the curriculum which was going to be conveyed throughout this module.

 

The first Input was looking and discussing different children’s art at different levels such as primary 3 or 6 and conveying the structured or non-structured art form and the meaning behind it:

This input was to begin our discussion of creativity and the process of a child’s mind with maturity and life experiences that may change how they decide to draw or look at art. For example, the bottom right picture was an early year’s level (P1) and was a non-structured lesson as they were given their own choice to draw a mixture of colours to display emotions such as happy or sad. This is can be explained in the stage theory that shows this stage as the ‘scribbling stage’ in ages 2-4 years.This stage is to let the child discover the ability to move their arms more freely and use all drawing tools with little to no concern (McAuliffe 2007). The bottom left picture was a higher expressive arts level (P6) and was more structured and is the ‘schematic stage’ in ages 7-9. The pictures become more complex; yet they still use schema. Single base-lines, multiple base-lines, and fold-up views are used (McAuliffe 2007). The schematic theme was a trip into a village and was to develop composition and had a similar perspective for the whole class. My favourite painting was the paper grid (Top Left) which I thought was different than the other paintings, this is because it was not used with a paintbrush or pen instead it was used with different materials. The children could choose their own colours of card and they could also work in groups.

 

“Drama is the act of crossing into a world of story, storying provides students with a natural human process for finding essential meanings in the experiences of themselves and others” – (Booth 1995)

This part of the module I was most interested in as throughout primary school and high school and even further education, I have always been surrounded by drama in the expressive arts and feel it’s a great way to get people and children to express themselves and get involved in a community. Having my higher and advanced higher qualifications I felt confident taking part and wanted to explore even more strategies and concepts of drama and how to teach it with children.

Firstly, we looked at story about a lonely dragon who was invading a village and the different conventions we could use to explore the story and use to help children learn literacy in a variety of ways. The options we looked at were:

 

Freeze frame – This convention was getting the children into groups and to tell a story silently in one pose and the emotions and story that is behind it. The scene was set around the villagers and what activities they would be doing when the dragon was about to attack. This is where you could do a before and after freeze frame to get the children to show two different emotions and two different discussions on what they think the villagers would feel or do in their village as a job.

 

Teacher in a role – This is where the teacher can show to the children the simplicity of becoming a character by adding or removing a prop or piece of clothing. Firstly, the lecturer started off as the mayor of the village and asked us questions about how we felt about the dragon and to set up a plan on how to stop it destroying our stock. This can be used to put the children more into the scene by and feel as if they are villagers and they have the decision to make their own story about the dragon.

 

Thought tunnel – This is where the character such as the dragon or villager stand in front of the pupils and they say words to describe how they feel about that character. This is to provoke literacy and emotional discussion, you could tie this part of the lesson with words you were learning that week such as ‘frightened’ or ‘angry’. In this example, the dragon walked through a line of villagers as we said examples such as scared or worried.

 

Hot seating – This is the most imaginative part of the lesson as it conveys improvisation and giving a child the opportunity to make their character the way they want and how they want to character to be in the story that will determine the ending. The lecturer was the dragon and we were all the villagers asking him questions which showed the dragon was confused and alone and was destroying the village because the villagers were scaring him.

 

Improvisation – This was the final stage of the lesson which was to continue off the hot seat and show in groups what we would want to happen for the dragon by either welcoming it into the village or fighting it. This is an opportunity to show role play and working on the spot with group discussion and ideas.

 

Both inputs linked and provided me information to show that as teachers, lessons like this are to show imagination no matter the age and to set particular language contexts and support appropriate understanding and empathy. Having lessons like this gives children the opportunity to develop their capacity in enjoying drama and their knowledge when discussing stories by using singular work and group work.

 

References

 

• McAuliffe, D (2007) Foundation and Primary Settings in Teaching Art and Design 3-11 (Edited by Sue Cox, Robert Watts, Judy Grahame, Steve Herne and Diarmuid McAuliffe) London: Continuum.

 

• Taylor, P (2004) The drama classroom: Action, reflection, transformation. Routledge.

 

• Ted Talk (2007) Do Schools Kill Creativity?: Sir Ken Robinson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY