Art Rubrics

In the article, “Developing Criteria Rubics in the Art Classroom”, they gave an excellent and very common example of a rubric making paper mache masks. I found that seeing this example of something that most people are familiar with and have done at some point was a great model for lessons that we may do in the future.

For me personally, I never thought about rubrics in regards to art, I thought it was usually just something that you could be as creative and different as you want with it, but I can see how in a classroom like setting it is important to be able to assess the students learning and knowledge of the content at hand. For me, I love having rubrics and even for something like art it would be helpful for me to see exactly what needs to be done and what is expected of me through a rubric. I think this is important and therefore something that I will also show in my future classroom. 

PIcture Books

When I was younger, reading was a huge hobby of mine. Up until today, picture books are something that I enjoy and have a large collection of.
More than actually reading the words in picture books, my favorite thing to do was look at the pictures and make up my own story. I had read my entire library of books so many times and I had to keep myself entertained somehow! I think this was a big part of helping my imagination and creativity grow because you can look at a picture and come up with a million different ways to explain it.

Also, reading pictures books as a child who is just starting reading can be extremely helpful. It helps the child to link the pictures to the words and certainly does increase their literacy level! It is helpful to use context clues and pictures for them to figure out the words!

Gene Yang's Blog

I found Gene Yang's blog to be extremely interesting and full of tons of links with useful and thoughtful information. The biggest area of interest to me on his blog however was the "Comics" link. There, I found all different types of Comics that promotes art and literature at the same time. This goes off of the idea in my last blog about how comics are an upcoming and common way to promote learning in classrooms, especially for those students who learn visually.

Another thing that really struck me was the song that was on the home page by a middle school student. It was a song about how although we all look different, we are the same and should be treated with the same respect. The song was inspired by "American Born Chinese". It is an extremely inspiring song, especially coming from such a young person.

Graphic Novels in the Classroom

I absolutely LOVE the idea of "graphic novels" in the classroom. In fact, in one of the education courses I am taking now, obviously being at the college level required me to read a graphic novel. While I read the novel, it was easy for em to picture and understand exactly what was going on. This way is much more affective than simply reading a novel without pictures or reading information from an article or textbook. This presents information in two different ways for two different types of learners; learners that like to have concrete solid information in words and learners who benefit from relating the words to the pictures, which face it, we all do. Seeing pictures helps you to process and actually remember what you have read.

Another great point that was brought up in this "graphic article" was the idea that the pictures in a graphic novel are permanent. This means that the reader can go at his or her own pace and not be slowed down or rushed by maybe even a teacher going at a different pace that they need during a lecture. I think that graphic novels are a great idea and will continue to be on the rise in the upcoming years.

How can you use art in math?

The article, "Islamic Art as an Educational Tool About the Teaching's of Islam" was a very informative article about a subject that I was not very familiar with at all. It discusses the use of arabic writing that occurs in many art forms and the importance and precise way in which arabic must be written. I would have never guessed this, but arabic writing (and art, because of the vast amounts of writing that appears in arabic art) has a lot to do with geometry. The ways and proportions in which the symbols are written are very important to the meaning of the words and therefore it is necessary for people who write in arabic to have a basic understanding of math, geometry in particular.

While this is not as important in the English print, to some degree when you think about it, you have to have some spatial and proportion ability in order to write legibly and clearly. This means that your math skills are related to your art skills and visa versa.

Art can be used in math in many ways. Especially for younger children, I can find many valuable ways that art can be used. In the lower grades, many children are able to express themselves easier through art. I have a child that I work with, for example, who is in the first grade and can never come up with ideas to free write about. I started her off by having her draw a picture first, and then use the picture to write her story and it worked out just great! This is what I mean when I say that it's easier for children to express themselves and understand concepts through art. The same can go for math, seeing thing visually, especially when learning basic math skills like addition and subtraction, it is easier to have a visual representation in order for young children to get the concept.

Rube Goldberg

Rube Goldberg is an artist who took very simple tasks and broke them down into a complicated process. On his website are a variety of his comical pieces that are all unique but very similar in their own way. By seeing this, it made me realize how much variety you can really have with art and the many different ways it can be portrayed.

In the article by Thomas A. Oakley, being a high school art teacher he talks about how he used Goldberg's work to help inspire his students who felt they had no talent in art to create work of their own. I can see how Goldberg's work would be perfect for this because it is expressed in a way that can appeal to a variety of viewers, they range from very simple pieces to much more elaborate pieces, which is what really helped Oakley's class. He used his work to have his students write about ways in which art is made, and this idea can be modified in many ways. One way that I could use his work in my own future class is 1) for a source of entertainment and enjoyment but I can also use it to break down all different sorts of activities or subjects that are being learned in the class. For example, if I was doing a lesson on photosynthesis with my class, I could have my students break down all of the processes and steps involved in photosynthesis. Or for something with a little more variety I could have students draw pictures of their typical Saturday afternoon. There are many things that could be inspired by Goldberg's work.

Art for Students with Special Needs

Last year, I had a placement where I worked with a young teenage boy who had autism for an entire semester. We met at least once every week and in the beginning of the semester he was very shy and reserved and it was difficult to figure out his interests and things that he enjoyed doing. I met with his mother to discuss this topic and see if she had any ideas that she could suggest for me to make our meeting time more worthwhile for him. She told me that he enjoyed doing normal boy things, like played sports or going for a workout, which was totally fine with me. She said that he never really enjoyed doing arts and crafts projects because he wasn’t very good at it, so that was something I avoided until our very last meeting when I wanted to make him a collage that he could keep to remember our times together.

Our collage first started out as him just watching me and making comments about what I was doing but he quickly became quite engaged and involved in the craft. He got very creative and actually took over the entire project! He also went on to make me a card to keep thanking me and telling me how much he would miss me. While he had certainly loosened up a great deal from out first meeting, he was never the overly open child and if he hadn’t written out this card I probably would have never understood how he really felt about the friendship that we had formed. Art and this project helped him to express his true feelings, which is important for him considering he is a person who was unable to fully express his feelings in words.

Literacy in Art

There are many, many different forms of art. Some art is simply beautiful and means nothing, while others are symbolic or may even tell a story. The most amazing thing about art is to one person it can mean one thing and to another it can be interpreted entirely differently.

For some people, a painting and any piece of art can tell an entire story. It's like the phrase, "A picture is worth a thousand words". Sometime there are stories, feelings, etc that are difficult or impossible to portray in verbal or written language but can be displayed beautifully in a painting. The phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words" is particularly true for visual learners and I'm sure you can see why. Visual learners learn best through seeing and doing rather than through other forms of communication. For visual learners, it may be easiest an most efficient for them to display their ideas through art. We have all heard stories of famous artists who were not considered particularly intelligent, however, their real ideas and "stories" were magnificent in their pieces of art. This goes to show the different learning styles and abilities of people that should never go unnoticed.

Autism

In the article 'Autism - The Way I See It', Grandin comes to realize that everyone thinks and sees the world differently and from varying perspectives. While this is especially true in people who are autistic, this idea is true for the general population as well. This article brings up an important that we, as teachers, MUST be aware of. It is essential for us to be able to find different ways and strategies of teaching in order to reach each and every one of our students and be able to adjust to different learning styles.

This article was particularly interesting to me because of a placement I did last semester in which I mentored a teenager with autism. He was 16 years old and was absolutely awesome. He was a very high functioning, but was particularly interested in doing hands on things and touching EVERYTHING. Through reading this article I realized that he definitely had a very visual way of learning. We did lots of art projects, which he became very passionate and involved in, while other topics seemed to bore him very easily. After trying many different activities and getting to know him, I learned what worked for him and a way to get through to him which is something that is very important to be able to do. It is important to be able to find subjects that your student is particularly interested in and make accommodations accordingly to get other topics and ideas incorporated into the learning.

What role has art played in your life?

It has become more and more of a debated issue whether or not different arts and extra curricular activities are necessary and beneficial in the classroom. With all of the new educational laws such as no child left behind, many people have argued that school time should be used for the purpose of strictly learning and drilling the curriculum and content into a child's head in order for them to be capable of passing an assessment. While content is certainly important and we all agree that there are some things that you just HAVE to know, this does not mean that the arts should not be included in the classroom as many children express themselves in different ways.

In my own educational career, I attended an arts middle school. Many of the students in the school were in the same boat as I was; they were very enthusiastic about whatever art they took up whether that be visual or performing. This enthusiasm and dedication allow us to succeed academically and become passionate and excited to attend school. The school actually wound up being ranked as one of the top schools in the city. This is why I could never understand taking away something that someone is passionate in order for them to succeed academically. People think and learn differently and should not be deprived of possibly the one thing that they enjoy and are good at, for confidence and motivational purposes.