Art
During today’s lecture and input on integrated arts we looked into the visual arts and in particular a painting by Avril Paton – Window’s in the West (1993). I discovered this painting was bought for the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art and is now being displayed at the Kelvingrove Art and Gallery Museum. The painting took 6 months to complete and was completed using watercolours. I was amazed at the length of time to complete this painting and I now recognise art can take time and should not be rushed.
In this lecture we looked at how we could link literacy with art in the classroom. A painting could be a stimulus for a piece of imaginative writing ; How does it make you feel? What does it make you think of ? Where does it take you in your imagination? Therefore the children could respond to the painting through listening and talking skills and writing. It creates a good starting point for imagination and creativity especially for those children who struggle to come up with a starting idea. Each idea is worthwhile and all ideas are considered and valued no ideas would be dismissed. It is a super problem solving activity where everyone’s ideas have to be taken into consideration as there is not only one right answer.
In the first part of the seminar we were given polystyrene boards to trace one section of the painting in great detail onto and used this to make several prints. I’m not confident at art but I found this task very straightforward and felt comfortable doing it and I was delighted with the result. Not all children are confident at art as I have witnessed on placement , “I can’t draw,’ and ‘ I’m rubbish at art.” This activity would build the confidence of children who feel this way.
After drawing out the painting we put a layer of paint over the top and pressed it onto a sheet of A4 coloured paper to make a print.
We continued to do this, putting different colours of paint over the top and using to make prints. Several prints can be made so the child’s ideas can be changed throughout the process and each time they can enhance their idea and this is an opportunity to make something original and therefore the child can be proud and satisfied with their achievement due to having improved on their print every time.
As a teacher in training, I understand that it is important to link art with subjects such as literacy, and this task does it perfectly. The children could draw a picture of the main scene in a novel or be creative and draw characters from the class novel or trace from the reading book and this printing technique could be a way of expressing that picture. The ‘Tallis Pedagogy Wheel’ shows that it is important for the children to be imaginative and creative in their work and to be able to work in the state of the unknown. Furthermore the Tallis Wheel suggests ideas of ‘imagine new solutions to problems, link multiple ideas together, trust their instincts. ‘ All these ideas could be developed by having a stimulus starting point.
Overall I feel that this week’s input was very beneficial as it has given me a task I could use in a classroom to help connect the visual arts with many varying subjects especially through inter disciplinary learning projects. It has also shown me the need to be organised and have all the resources needed to hand.
Drama
As this was our first session in drama I felt very nervous and apprehensive to start. However I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the class. At the beginning of the session the class had a discussion about our previous experiences with drama. I have had absolutely no experience with drama as we were never offered drama or a drama club a school. Grainger, (2007) argues that teachers need to have their own ‘ experience of creative and artistic activity’ to be able to work with their pupils to create and have ‘our own creative confidence and enrich our creative competence as a profession.’ In addition if we want our pupils to take risks in drama they must feel safe and have a teacher that is willing to demonstrate their own creative side through drama. I realise the importance of this and after todays session I feel more confident and willing to teach drama in the classroom.
Today we used a dragon as a stimulus for a drama activity. We had work collaboratively as a group to work out a way to stop the dragon scaring all the villagers and disruption the way we live. We used freeze frames to come up with a way of either killing or scaring the dragon off. My group chose to use our freeze frame by having bow and arrows and point them up at the sky where the dragon was. This situations allows children to take on roles that they would never normally have a chance to do. It is a form of escapism where the children can get lost in their imagination and take on a new role. They can ponder new ideas and if there was a class problem such as bullying the teacher could create a drama activity around that subject where the children would see the problems of bullying and find a solution to it. Again Grainger, (2007) suggests that drama provides many opportunities to work through some real and imaginary ideas and it allows the children to see things from another point of view and understand that there can be consequences for specific actions. Furthermore Grainger suggests that a good classroom drama activity involves investigating a new situation that doesn’t have an answer that has already been predetermined.
References
Grainger, T. (2003) Creative teachers and the language arts: Possibilities and potential, Education 3-13: International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education, 31:1, 43-47, DOI: 10.1080/03004270385200071
Paton, A. (2017) Windows in the West. [Online] Available: https://avrilpaton.co.uk/prints/windows-in-the-west [Accessed: 5th October 2017]
Thomas Tallis School. (2017) The TALLIS Habits Pedagogy Wheel. [Online] Available: http://www.thomastallisschool.com/tallis-pedagogy-wheel-guide.html [Accessed: 5th October2017]
