In today’s visual arts workshop we returned to the Scottish Highlands. We wrote freely into our painting, depicting our stream of consciousness in the form of the image. We were also able to work in the style of ‘Room 13’ again as we were able to use our own voice and style in our painting. The Highlands are the poetry of Scotland, so I chose Burn’s poem “My Heart’s in the Highlands” to interpret into my highland scene. It is a poem/song that I connect with as I sung it when competing in Burn’s singing competitions in school. The words were to flow and have meaning in your picture, so I drew a ‘heart in the highlands’ between the mountains. I also wrote the lyrics ‘my heart is not here’ into the lower lands of the picture. We used pastels to make out artwork multi-modal and turn the picture from 2D to 3D.
However, we had to think about the materials we used, if we were able to see the writing through the pastels and paint. You could not in my picture, so I tried using different colours, but the pastels were hard to write with, so I tried charcoal which worked well. This activity would be good to use in the classroom as it is cross-curricular, advancing literacy with an arts-based approach. It also encourages pupil voice and imagination. Children are not given enough opportunity to engage with arts in school, so this will give them the chance to do so. Higher order colouring books would also be a good activity for the children get creative in class, they are demanding and require the children to think more.
Everyone’s work was very different, highlighting individual voice. Although we all had the same task, we took a different approach and had a different interpretation of depicting our ‘stream of consciousness’. “As children improve and see their own progress, their self-confidence will continue to grow.” (https://www.learningliftoff.com/10-reasons-arts-in-education-important-kids/)
We did ‘Micro-teaching’ in the drama workshop. Each group created their own drama lesson that could be used in the classroom. We were given the freedom to choose whatever topic we wanted, giving us the opportunity to be creative. The groups who taught today chose to base their lesson on a children’s story. I think this is a good idea because the children will have something to base their drama on which may make them feel more comfortable when participating. Different drama conventions were explored by each group which meant every lesson was unique. My self-confidence was improved as we created our own lessons to teach our peers. “Taking risks in class and performing for an audience teach students to trust their ideas and abilities.” (http://www.wearecca.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Benefits-of-Drama-Education.pdf) My group was worried at first because another group had chosen the same book as us, ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt”, but the lessons ended up being very different. This was a good activity as teaching a class in a group gave us the chance to experience teaching, but not starting it on our own. We planned and implemented it well together and the class participated. We were conscious of being condescending towards our class mates as we had based the lesson on early level. But as we were all doing the same thing our class mates were very understanding and respectful. We set clear learning intentions and success criteria, so the class knew what was expected of them. We allowed them the opportunity to be creative by asking them to decide on and act out their own obstacle in the story. It is important to give children a voice and this would give them the opportunity to make the story their own. We also implemented a form of assessment (using thumbs to say whether they achieved all the success criteria or not). When doing this with children we would take it a step further and ask why or why not they think they met the success criteria.
Each workshop allowed us the opportunity to be creative and bring things to life. We brought a highland scene to life in our visual arts workshop by making our painting look 3D and brought characters to life from a children’s story by acting as different characters.
References
Drama Education Network (2005) [online] The Benefits of Drama Education Available: http://www.wearecca.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Benefits-of-Drama-Education.pdf [Accessed on: 14th December 2019].
Martin, L. (2014) [online] 10 Reasons Why Arts in Education Is so Important for Kids Available: https://www.learningliftoff.com/10-reasons-arts-in-education-important-kids/ [Accessed on: 14th December 2019].
