I was in Saint Louis last week to visit my dad, and found time to visit the SLAM. I needed to gather more image resources because I felt I was running on empty, and the internet can only take you so far. This is what I found---
Edwin Landseer, Attachment, 1829
I realized as I VTSed this image with one of my classes that this had been a choice made based on personal meaning. But it is still a great image, because it was easy for students (non-focus group) to humanize animals, and the first class got the meaning right away.
I went into the photography exhibit and was reminded of a narrative photographer, Gregory Crewdson. A lot of his work isn't right for elementary school, but his work led me to others I remembered from a couple of years ago.
Gregory Crewdson
Simen Johan
Holly Andres
Other images I making note of for possible later use -
In has been great to witness the thinking processes of my students this year. VTS discussions have opened a window that lets me view their cognition. To date, I have viewed kindergartners as students that need to be developed, which is true I guess of all people. Kindergarten is such of force of socialization that acts upon the children. It is cool to slow down a bit just to experience them, work with them, and reflect on their growth.
It has been a real eye opener to see the qualitative changes in their discussions. The change that happened mid year was astonishing. I was noticing the reduction of matching behaviors before winter break, but after winter break I noticed a lot of comments insinuating cause and effect and narrative.I really wish Mary would offer a research course next year to gather data on VTS. I would be interested in doing qualitative research that documented the changes in kindergartners, looked at classroom curriculum in the regular subjects, and tried to see if there was a transference of learning in two directions – art to regular classroom, regular classroom to art. But I think I would need a graduate course to help offer the validity to my request to the kindergarten teachers, since it would require time on their sides also.
The major challenge with my focus group is the behavioral challenges. This semester, I have been VTSing with all four of my K classes, but it is my focus class that has so many disruptions during our VTS sessions. My focus group is a conglomerate of behavioral differences. It includes the “regulars”, two very vocal CBI students, and three students with documented discipline issues – it is more than a classroom management issue – it is a survival issue!
Right now I am in search of a text that will supplement our class text and readings. I have early elementary art books that say they talk about meaning making ready to be picked up at UALR library that I hope may be close to our class text in terms of offering information on meaning making, but for younger students.
Right now, I think my writer’s block is coming from defining meaning making in the context of kindergarten. It is not something I have looked at before. I do like the theme of artist as storyteller, and plan to stick with it.
I would like to add to Terry Barrett’s introduction that learning to make art does not mean you can communicate meaning verbally about your own art. I started volunteering as a museum docent a few months after I completed my BFA in photography because I did not know how to talk about art, especially my own. I relied on a gut feeling of “that’s it!” in judging my own work.
A lot from this article sounds similar to VTS facilitation. Clear ground rules that encourage respectful behavior, prompts that ask students to describe what they see, asking the viewer to make meaning, and as a teacher making sure the setting and works of art are appropriate. But what this article is describing is the process of art criticism, a process that includes description, interpretation, analysis, and evaluation. It almost feels to me that VTS could be a strategy to fulfill the first two steps in art criticism in the elementary classroom, the first three if engaged in by a more developed viewer.
There are two insights I have taken away from the article that I would like to use when VTSing with my students. The first is to occasionally allowing by students to choose the image they VTS from a preselected group of 3 I have chosen. Another is a question that can be used as a closure, “What have we learned about ____ today?” In a way, it would give the students a sense that their discussion was a learning experience. However, I know that there could be reasons not to end a VTS session with such a question. It seems that the author is hinting at a universal truth that can be gleaned by any viewer if the teacher guided the interpretation in the “right” way.
How does it compare to the introductory image for your unit?
In terms of complexity and detail?
I think this image is about the same when compared with Homer’s Snap the Whip, but more complex then the sculpture. The major difference for me would be the sense of space. Homer’s painting curves from the right side, moves parallel to the viewer, and then goes way back. Burr’s painting moves in a circular way in the confines of a room in which the viewer is positioned. I mention this because my focus class seems to still figuring out how to visually move in pictorial space.
In terms of ambiguity and meaning?
Both paintings lent to a variety of student narratives.
In terms of cultural and historic diversity?
Both paintings are similar in terms of 19th century genre. But since my focus group has a kindergarten sense of place and time, I don’t think they noticed a marked difference between their culture and time and those displayed in the artworks.
In terms of style and medium?
There was not a big difference in the style and medium of the images. Both are narrative paintings. Both are 19th century genre.
Were responses to Image #3 qualitatively or quantitatively different in any way?
The number of responses was about the same. One difference is that with image 3, two students offered evidence with their interpretations. Another difference is the reduction of “listing” responses. Student responses to Image 1 were more narrative than responses from the previous semester, and I noticed a sharp reduction in “listing” and “matching” responses. I noticed a lot of cause and effect narratives along with the idiosyncratic stories. With image 3, only one student answered by listing observations. The rest of the answers were interpretations – some idiosyncratic, some based on personal associations, some based on evidence in the artwork.
Has the integration of VTS discussions into this curriculum unit impacted the student art products in any way?
The answer is no. I still have not developed a curriculum unit yet. I can’t see the forest through the trees. Developing a unit at the beginning of the semester seemed to be too much frontloading. I am still trying to distill our semester readings down to the early elementary level and figure out how to help my youngest students create meaning while at the same time teaching basic art skills. A big shift has also occurred in their responses that have allowed me to tweak the images I pick – we can move on from describing objects to creating narratives.
*One thing I have noticed that kindergarteners are asked to identify beginning, middle, and ends of stories in their classrooms. I think the teaching they receive in the regular classroom affects the way they respond to the art.
Has the integration of VTS discussions into this curriculum unit affected student attitudes or motivation in any way?
I haven’t noticed a difference. A couple have asked, “When are we going to make something?” when they come to art and see the dots on the floor, and the lights dimmed. Most students come to art to “do.” It is terrible important that they learn to speak about art, and because of that I know I have to work hard ant making sure our discussions are valid and motivating to them.
In the course of reading the week 7 assignment, I found many correlations between Terry Barrett's article, About Art Interpretation for Art Education, and my own classroom VTS experiences so far. Interpreting is personal and communal; their are many valid interpretations to a single artwork; interpreting relies in part on what the viewer has experienced in the past; voicing interpretations in a group setting can reinforce opinions or challenge them; multiple interpretations can unify a classroom - building shared meaning.
I had three insights arise as a I read this article.
#1 - On page 8, the author says,"To interpret a work of art from a time and place other than our own, we must at first recognize it is of another time and from another place." Upon further reflection of the paragraph from which the quote is excerpted, this statement points to a viewer whom is at least Stage III.
#2 - The authors we have read so far are well educated and have experience teaching in some way or another. They seem to be a little removed from the actual art classroom, though. I remember reading a study from last semester done in the classroom. Is there someone else out there to testify? :)
#3 - Barrett states that we may be more comfortable with communal interpretations than with personal interpretations (so true, in all subject areas). I like how she relates the personal interpretations to the communal ones and vice versa. It is not presented as either /or, but as being complementary.
After reading "Becoming Dialogical, " I decided to start testing a bone of contention that I had with the article. I was also inspired by the article to allow students to ask questions of images before we delved further.
This is my third year teaching elementary art, and I am still trying to find my footing. I began teaching by teaching a year of junior high, then a year of high school. I prefer longer, in depth projects that my elementary schedule doesn't allow. I have pretty much decided that each grade level is going to have an overarching theme that we explore in depth through a variety of art experiences to create meaning (and meet the state standards). The theme for 5th grade this year is Pop Art. We began with the Ash can artists, went onto Duchamp, and are into the pop artists themselves. The artist we are discussing right now is Andy Warhol. Before reading about Andy Warhol, I showed four images mentioned in the excerpt the students were about to read - Coke bottles, 200 dollar bills, the Marilyns, and the soup cans. I asked the students to think about any questions they had about the artworks, and then to share them with the class as I wrote them on the board. At first they looked around the room at each other, then at me with a unsure and puzzled looks. I explained that I had just read a good article about how sometimes teachers don't ask enough questions of the students. I am fortunate that I had one brave student offer up a question that was not goof ball/ off topic. I think it gave the students courage to voice their questions. Above are photographs of the questions. After the reading, we checked off the questions we had answered. I told them we would answer the other questions as we made our artwork in the following weeks.
Designing an assessment guideline for the kindergartners and integrating in to the curriculumis going to be a big change. Right now, I just informally assess the younger students on whether they can or can’t do a task. I then re teach the skill by breaking it down even further or doing hand over hand guidance for the students who don’t have as developed motor skills.
To acknowledge the needs of the students, the unit will incorporate art experiences that are process oriented (skill building). The major emphasis will be on formative assessment, as Beattie suggests. I will probably use checklists, tallies, and note/journal reflections. For the students, I might have them use a pictoral rating scale to judge their work. Kindergarteners like to talk, so I think I might try modeling a whole class critque a few times, then let them work in small groups at later dates to critique their work. The formative assessment for this grade level will mainly be verbal or through the use of picture symbols. For the summative assessment, I will be asking the students to tell me about their work (interviews), since students at this level use narrative and action to explain their work.
VTS is a great tool for assessing the cognitive skills of my kinders. Since most can’t write well enough to express their thinking at this stage, VTS allows me a snapshot of their thinking. It would be a good summative assessment tool to see if the instructional methods were effective.
I would like to question a statement made by Zander, that seems based on a faulty assumption, rather than experience.
‘Gallas (1995) says that in teaching science, the kinds of questions that engage her students are the questions that children naturally wonder about. “How do people age? How does the brain work? How is blood made?"(p. 70). The kinds of questions that children wonder about in art are likely to be very different. They might be questions like, "How do artists get ideas? What do artists do? Why did they use a particular style or material?”
To be argumentative, the same kindergartners that ask how a brain works will not be asking how artists get ideas, or why the artists use a particular style. They will ask, “When do we get to paint? How do I draw a pig? How do I open my glue bottle?” The same students that are gaining basic knowledge in science need to gain basic knowledge in art.
Now that I have those things out of my system, I found numerous statements in Zander’s article that echo what I have learned so far about becoming a VTS practitioner.
·The article class for more active student involvement, and less didactic teaching.
·Dialogue is a process in which the teacher is a facilitator (Burbiles, 1993).
·The purpose of dialogue is to get to know different points of views.
·There should be guidelines in dialogues that help develop good listeners that are respectful of differing opinions.
·Student statements should be made using conditional language.
Two insights I take away from this article are that I need to question my students before I start “teaching.” It would be such a simple question, “ What questions do you have as you look at this artwork? I feel KWL charts working into my unit plan.
Another insight is the use of open-ended activities. Such practices are also recommended in other class readings, especially in the course text. But the application of open-ended activities is starting to make more sense after reading this article, though I think I would have to structure it a bit more for the kinders, maybe by setting up centers.
Baron’s concept of a good thinker begins with the uncertainty of a problem to solve and is guided by the belief that they will find a solution. The good thinker searches for solutions based on evidence.The parallel between Baron and Glotthorn andVTS is that when engaged in VTS,a beginning viewer uses observations, backed by evidence, to create meaning. The one disparity is that in VTS, the beginning viewer constructs meaning in a group setting, where Baron’s view of collective meaning making is not cited in Leshnoff’s article.
Ambiguity in a work of art allows students opportunities to apply their knowledge of formalist elements of perception in order to decipher artworks. Ambiguity also allows students to make meaning of an artwork for themselves. The students will make meaning based on their own life experiences. Ambiguity also allows students the chance to consider the opinions of others and develop collective meaning based on various perspectives.VTS methodology may foster the benefits of ambiguity by engaging the students in discussions of art that allows for meaning from a variety of personal experiences, the opinions of others,and evidence gathered from observations.
Many of my images so far are open to interpretation by my kindergartners. They have been able to create a variety of narratives based on the open endedness of the artworks. Our last example lent itself to multiple narratives. The range of interpretations ranged from playing to kidnapping to the kids woke up when Santa was in the house. Gestures were interpreted as sneaky, playful, and fearful.
