Week 3 - Visual Arts

In this week’s art lecture we were given some great pointers as to how we should construct and create a visual arts lesson plan. We learnt about the teaching/learning process, which has three steps: 1/ Exploring (Experimenting), 2/ Developing (Making) and 3/ Reflecting (Studying). I feel that all steps are very important to include in potential lessons but I want to ensure that I allow for sufficient time for reflection in my arts lessons.

We were given a concrete example of these steps in action, which I found helpful.

A teaching and learning process for visual arts

1.     Exploring – show them a segment of a doco or film on turtles, maybe bring a turtle into class, read a story about a turtle, sing a song about a turtle, we could be turtles (drama) How do I get them enthused? Time to experiment and play with new materials – Don’t just brainstorm its lazy!

2.     Developing – making the artwork

3.     Reflecting – an opportunity to evaluate their work/work of others, time to appreciate – maybe a little written reflection

In this weeks tutorial we used our sketched portraits from last week to create painted cubist portraits. Firstly we cut our portrait up into four pieces and wrote the two colours that we wanted our portrait to be painted on the back of each segment. We swapped the segments of our portrait with our classmates and proceeded to paint the pieces in whatever colours were indicated. We were encouraged to not only use paintbrushes but to experiment with a wide range of tools such as tootbrushes, forks, sponges, rollers etc to create a variety of interesting effects.

Below is an example of one of the cubist portraits:

Week 3 - Drama

This week we focused on one of the most important components of the art form of drama: role.

To assume a role is to step into another person’s shoes, and by taking this step “…students learn to assume roles that are both similar to and different from those of their real lives, temporarily adopting another person’s perspective” (Ewing & Simons, 2004, p. 5).

This idea of assuming a role got me thinking about the opportunity that drama offers in the instruction of English Language Learners in the classroom. As Hertzberg points out, taking on the role of another person allows ELL students to take a ‘safe risk’ saying “If they make a mistake, it is the character who makes the mistake and not them; if they say something that really is from the heart, again it is the character and no-one else need know that it really is their thoughts” (Hertzberg, 2012, p. 133).

We need to provide our ELL students with a range of opportunities to practice different registers and language functions if they are to move beyond conversational language and acquire academic language, and drama offers a great way to provide ELL students with that range.

In the workshop we looked at the book ‘Voices in the Park’ by Anthony Browne. After having read the book we then proceeded to stick adjectives and phrases on two large outlines of two of the characters from the book, describing how we thought these characters were feeling.

After this we formed groups and developed a series of still images that painted one of two scenarios, either a birthday or a holiday, in which the characters interacted. I was chosen to play the voice of Charles and explain what was going on in our holiday scenario. This was very liberating because it gave me the opportunity to really articulate how Charles must have been feeling through the use of improvisation. I didn’t know what I was going to say before I said it and this experience was liberating! Finally in pairs we were asked to interact with each other assuming one of the characters from the book. To finish the workshop we were asked by the teacher to add another voice to the book and below is my piece of writing from the perspective of a homeless person

It’s a funny thing being homeless. You might as well be invisible. Nobody wants to look at you or pay you any attention because it reminds them of how good they’ve got it. If people actually stopped to think about how good they’ve got it then they wouldn’t have anything to complain about, and lord knows people love to have a whinge. But apart from the cold and the wet, I don’t mind being homeless. It allows me to see things that other people don’t see. Like cruelty, kindness and everything in between.

References

Ewing, R. & Simmons, J. (2004) Beyond the script: Drama in the classroom. take 2. 2nd ed. Sydney:PETA. 

Hertzberg, M. (2012). Teaching English language learners in mainstream classes. Marrickville Metro, N.S.W. : Primary English Teaching Association Australia.

Week 2 - Visual Arts

In the lecture this week we looked at the three stages of drawing that children go through – scribble, symbolism and realism. This was further explored through Marjorie and Brent Wilson’s graphic principles. It was fascinating to be provided with some guidelines by which we could more accurately assess the stage of development of our students.

At the beginning of our art workshop we presented our homework piece to the rest of the class.

The brief was to create a montage of our name using various found objects that represent various aspects of our personalities.

Here is my name montage.

J – I did a felt tip pen drawing of a microphone shaped in the letter ‘J’ because I perform as a vocalist in various bands.

E – I formed the letter ‘e’ by sticking together leaves that I found in my front yard because I grew up in the Blue                Mountains and I enjoy being amongst nature.

S – I created an s shape out of torn up sugar sachets because I have a sweet tooth!

S – This ‘s’ was made by sticking chili flakes onto the page in an s shape because I am a fan of spicy food.

E – I cut this ‘e’ shape out of my friends’ album launch flyer that I was performing at.

I really enjoyed creating my name montage as it gave me time to appreciate some of the things that I enjoy/are important to me and it was also a very good way to find out a little bit more about my classmates. It is definitely an activity that i would look to use in a classroom setting with my future students.

In the rest of the workshop we paired off and created a pencil drawing portrait of our partner. I was nervous about engaging in this activity, but after our teacher gave us a couple of simple instructions on how to accurately divide up our face so that features such as eyes and nose would be proportionate and accurately positioned I felt a lot better about the activity. It just goes to show how a bit of appropriate teacher scaffolding can provide students with the confidence to engage in previously daunting activities.

Week 2 - Drama

The emphasis of this weeks’ Drama lecture was on readers’ theatre. According to the NSW BOS Creative Arts k-6 syllabus, readers’ theatre “…involves a rehearsed reading for an audience where participants build, sustain and resolve dramatic tension within the context of the drama through gesture and language.” (p. 91). We learnt about the importance of emphasising voice qualities when modelling readers’ theatre through exploring tone, pitch, volume, accent, stress and playing with pace and silent pauses for dramatic effect.

We had the opportunity to participate in our own piece of readers’ theatre in the drama workshop. My group was assigned the poem ‘on the ning nong nang’ and it was great to be able to employ some of the techniques we had heard about in the lecture. My group presented our reading of the poem through the use of levels (low, mid, high), experimenting with pitch, volume and tone and incorporating movement. 

I particularly enjoyed the planning process prior to our performance, as it was interesting to hear differing opinions on everything from what the text meant to discussion of what each individual should be doing during the performance.

Indeed, Ewing and Simons ( 2004, p. 84) recognise that “Working co-operatively to unpack the meaning(s) of a text can be one of the best ways to demonstrate that everyone brings their own prior experiences to anything they read, and there is no right way to interpret a text”. This certainly proved to be the case when my group was discussing the poem. It was refreshing to hear the perspectives of my group mates as some of them had very different ideas to myself as to what the text meant and how best to deliver it, but we were able to reconcile our differences and arrive at a final script that we were all happy with.

References 

NSW Department of Education and Training. 2000. Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus. Sydney:
DET.

Ewing, R. & Simons, J. 2004. Beyond the script: Drama in the classroom. Take 2. 2nd ed.
Sydney: PETA.

Week 1 - Drama

It was great to be getting stuck into drama early on in the semester. I have been interested in exploring drama ever since first semester where we looked at the technique of ‘conscience alley’ being used in English as a tool for further exploring character in text. One thing that really resonated with me in the lecture was just how great an opportunity drama provides in teaching kids how to look at things from alternative perspectives. I am starting to realise that teaching is so much more than just communicating academic content to our students. Of paramount importance is the elaboration of our student’s morals and character and I think that drama will offer a very rich vehicle for children to analyse situations from different points of views. If we can get our students to empathise with the situation of characters by ‘walking in their shoes’ through the use of process drama, then we will be going a long way towards moulding socially aware and thoughtful young people.

In the lecture we looked at a piece of text called ‘The Green Children’ and were asked to formulate questions to bring to the drama workshop. Some of the questions I came up with were:

‘Why are the children green?’
‘What do they eat?’
‘Why do they have to fit in with the majority?’
‘What was the green boy pining for?’

As a result of these questions, we were asked to further challenge the perspectives and assumptions we had formed as a result of the text. For example, were the ‘green children’ actually children? Could they have been small adults or maybe even aliens instead? I am starting to appreciate the opportunity that drama provides for exploring a multitude of different roles and perspectives. As I am learning, drama is always about assuming a role.

We proceeded to engage in a number of drama activities revolving around the text, such as still image/freeze frame of the moment of discovery of the green children, creating an aerial map of the town the green children were discovered in and tapping in which requires each student to assume a freeze frame of a character in the scenario and when they are tapped in they have to come to life and improvise some dialogue.

I had a great time in drama and am starting to see how drama can be a brilliant tool that we can incorporate into other KLAs especially english.

Week 1 - Visual Arts

Week one of creative arts and i have to admit i have really been looking forward to starting this unit. Some of my fondest and most vivid memories of primary school all revolve around art. I was lucky enough to have a primary school teacher who focused heavily on art and what i loved about the subject in primary school was that it never felt laborious. I always saw it as something that was a lot of fun compared to other subjects like maths. On reflection, i think part of the attraction was that there was never a precise answer with art. There was never a right or wrong. However you decided to express yourself was ok. I feel like that realisation fostered a feeling of safety and i can imagine that art can be utilised to encourage those students who may be less confident in other KLAs.

We started our art lecture with Robyn asking the question what is art?

That is a tricky question to give a clear answer to. Art encompasses such a broad spectrum of human expression that giving a specific definition can prove to be a difficult task. We were asked to partner up with the person sitting next to us and come up with a creative way of expressing our answer. Me and my partner (Ross) decided that we could write a poem, and more specifically a Haiku.
This is what we came up with:

To express ones self
By any means possible
Is the heart of art

Ross was kind enough to head to the front of the lecture hall and read it out to everyone and was met with a warm round of applause. There were some other great examples including a very clever mimed drama piece exploring the development of art through history.

The biggest revelation i had in today's lecture came towards the end of the lecture when Robyn was talking about an illustration from the book 'The Little Prince'. In the book the child draws a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant but the image isn't apparent to the teacher, so the child has to draw what is going on inside the boa constrictor's stomach. The child is dismayed that she had to explain her drawing to her teacher. It suddenly hit me that as a child it must be tiring to always have to give explanations of their art to adults. I hope that when i become a teacher i give my students the space to use their imagination and not be quizzed on it when they do. I will endeavour to appreciate their art and accept it at face value and not expect them to conform to a more adult understanding of art.

In the art workshop we participated in a great game that I will look to employ in the future. We were split into teams and given a piece of paper with a letter of the alphabet in the corner. We had to draw a picture or a couple of pictures that when combined described a characteristic of a good art teacher. We then had to guess as many characteristics of a good art teacher as possible. I had to draw a characteristic starting with the letter B. I decided I would combine the letter ‘B’ with a picture of an old man with wrinkles to define the characteristic ‘Bold’. I really thought that this was a great game as it got us thinking about characteristics that make a good art teacher and also encouraged team co-operation and participation.