Learning Through Evocative Objects For Teaching and Learning. 

In the workshop:

For the first week of this module we had to bring an evocative object in to show to our peers. An evocative object is an object that, “traces the power of everyday things. These essays reveal objects as emotional and intellectual companions that anchor memory, sustain relationships, and provoke new ideas” (Turkle, 2001).

My evocative object of choice was a book full of pictures, postcards, and posters that I have collected over the years. This book means a lot to me as it contains a lot of memories, particularly of family that I have since moved away from. The emotional connection I have to this book was my reason for choosing it for the unit of work that we were going to do on this object.

In education:

In the CFE experiences and outcomes for art and design, it states that at early, first and second level children should experience being,

“Inspired by a range of stimuli, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through activities within art and design.

EXA 0-05a / EXA 1-05a / EXA 2-05a”

Getting children to bring in evocative objects for discussion and exploration can allows children to show their inner most thinking and develop their ability to share their thoughts and feelings with other adults (class teacher) and children (fellow pupils). For a pupil it is important for them to able to communicate their ideas and express themselves which develops confidence and self esteem (Bloomfield and Childs, 2005). Using evocative objects can encourage creativity in children who are shy or struggle with ideas as using object with importance/ significance to them may jog more ideas than if they were asked just to come up with an idea with no or an unfamiliar stimulus.

Using evocative objects in the classroom can form a coherent unit of work integrating the arts with other aspects of the curriculum. Obviously, the evocative objects can be drawn for art, pupils can write about their objects and they could create drama/ music surrounding their object. The merging of the art and writing is the basis of the book ’26 Treasures’ which blends pictures of an object  with writing that is 62 words and can be in any genre. A similar unit of work can easily be done in the classroom and the class could create their own version of the book to keep to show visitors/ parents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES.

Bloomfield, A & Childs. J. (2002) Teaching Integrated Arts in the Primary School. London: David Fulton Publishers.

Turkle, S. (2011) Evocative objects. 1st ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.