Language and Literature: Teaching and the Visual Arts, Developing Students’ Cultural and Aesthetic Motivation and Strategies
Gratiela Dascalescu, Romania
Gratiela Dascalescu , teaches at school no. 5 “Corneliu M. Popescu” Bucharest, Romania. E-mail: gratiescu@yahoo.com
Menu
Introduction
The importance of poetry in children’s learning
Reading paintings… reading poems/ Paintings and poems in the classroom
Activities
Conclusion
Bibliography
The debate about the aesthetic dimension of education has lately taken on a hectic character. The New Millennium has triggered off a painful consequence of the last decade of the 20th century, the quasi marginalization of literature and arts in the National Curriculum, together with a false general belief that dealing with Arts is not as rigorous and exact business as Maths and Science, denying the fact that working with art means not just mental labour but also the full commitment of the individual. The language teachers should argue more to rehabilitate the term “aesthetic”, and emphasize once more that visual arts and literature may lead to a particular form of sensuous understanding.
There is great evidence that a cross-curricular approach should become a must of our time. When our students participated in an interdisciplinary experience they became more conscious about their self-value and are more actively engaged in the learning process. Even though cross-curricular teaching involves a conscious effort, the topics can be approached from many-sided perspectives.
The power of poetry lies in the acknowledgment of the narrative imagination, and there is a strong necessity for a cultural continuity and the important role-played by poetry and visual arts in the development of children’s mastery of language. Considering the “sister arts” poetry and painting there are many theories pleading for a greater integration of literature and visual arts, particularly painting in classroom language teaching, most likely to win our pupils’ enthusiasm. The Reader-Response theory and the visual representation and the nature of viewer response theories, as well as the Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences should be taken into account in the way our students “experience poems and pictures. By immersing themselves in paintings and poems our students would plunge in a viewing/reading process in relation with the two arts, which can be named an “aesthetic transaction” (Greene - 1989).
My decision to provide in our school the optional course “Art in the English speaking world” was meant to develop the students’ abilities of receiving the artistic message and understand the way art study should be integrated with the study of the English language and culture, improving at the same time their abilities to use language structures correctly. With auditory and visual stimuli as input the students are encouraged to investigate the complex relationship between colour, light, setting as basic elements of painting and their symbolic meaning and mood expressed through poetical language.
The aim of this optional class “Art in the English Speaking World ( offered as an alternative and taught at present at school no. 5 Bucharest,Romania) was to help students recognize how art media can be integrated in the study of the English language and literature and to acquaint students with masterpieces of British art, to let them understand the visual arts in relation to language, literature and culture and provide them knowledge how these ones can influence each other. The course also intended to provide the students with more understanding of the historical and cultural contexts of a variety of artistic expressions and to get the students to know and to express opinions about the most representative examples of English painting and poetry.
It has already been proved that in teaching poetry does often work better than any other form of language; problem that arises is how to adapt the uniqueness of poetry to classroom methodology. Children’s experiences of hearing, enacting discussing and making poems can give us some clues. The question that aroused in my mind was:Why poetry?
First, because as a supreme form of literature, it is the art of mastering words and their meanings. Alongside with other texts used in EFL class, it provides not only authentic materials but also will offer cultural awareness. Poems matter because they hold the readers in the double spell of fiction and form. Furthermore,though every poem is unique, all poems have attributes in common like the unique or special use of language, where the auditory and visual images dominate. During the optional classes, I have taken into account the principles of the Reader’s Response Theory, considering that a poem or a painting have both the capacity of being at the same time closed and open structures when they are to be interpreted.
The children were invited to sit and listen to sounds of the winds, oceans, to notice the vivid colours of the clouds, hear the voice of history and so on while listening and reading poems.Words working in poems offer a different reading experience; they are more lively, having a plurality of meanings that are not delimited by lexical definitions and referential meanings.Poetry matters in children’s education because feelings and thinking remain in close touch with each other, offering the child the awareness of how language becomes more subtle through poetry.
Language teachers should expose children to a lot of poetry in order to read, hear, write speak about the content, building a reading confidence and create a taste for poetry which many young people nowadays seem to lack as they go through low secondary school. One of the problems of our teachers is dwelling on a poem for discussion or study without providing enough time and opportunity for individual reflection. Articulating and reflecting upon personal responses are fundamental to the reader’s early apprehension of a poem.
By adopting the Students’ Response methodology in order to develop the students’ creativity, the process of reading becomes a dialogue between multiple readers, subjected to arbitrary interpretation, letting the reader become a co-author of the text, thus the study is stimulating, enjoyable and challenging. The reading process in relation to the arts of painting and poetry should be given more consideration by our teachers for a more successful content integration in the classroom. It offers an engaging variety of teaching approaches, opening up rich and diverse resources; it engages students in more complex activities of ‘reading’ pairs of paintings and poems. By using group work and pair work, students move their viewpoint from colours and shapes to a few meaningful utterances, which give them the feeling of awareness of an aesthetic pleasure.
The teacher is supposed to provide his students with good quality colour reproductions, but reminding the students that the uniqueness of an original painting cannot be matched. However, the reproduction used can be a good starting point for a debate. I entitled the first stage of this attempt of teaching “1001 WAYS OF LOOKING AT…paintings and poems”.
Setting up the scene
About 15-20 minutes
- The class was asked to examine the reproduction of one of John Constable's most famous landscapes-”Salisbury Cathedral from the river” and to note what they see without any discussion. The Teacher has given the Ss a set of preliminary questions to answer for each type of paintings, such as:
- What does the painting show?
- Are there any figures in the picture?
- What colours have the artist chosen? /why?
- Do any colours stand out from the rest?Which is the dominant colour?
- What do you feel looking at this painting?
- What is the mood of the picture? (Elicit:Mysterious, calm, happy, frightening)
- Why do you think the artist painted the picture?
- How do you think he was feeling when he painted it?
- The Teacher focuses his/her attention on the students’ initial responses and asks Ss to share their answers within their group, then chooses some students to share their answers with the whole class .
About 15-20 minutes
- As a follow up, T provided the Ss with the handouts of Blake's poem "The Schoolboy" (three stanzas)by telling them that the poem was written by a famous18th century English poet and asks them to read it in their group and answer some questions.
- Did children like to go to school?
- What did they use to do at school?
- Did they like reading? Why not?
- What would they have liked to do instead?
- How did they feel at school?
- What does the poet compare the schoolboy to?
- Do you children feel nowadays the same when you are at school? Why?
- What should teachers do to motivate Ss to enjoy English classes?
Then the Ss read through the chosen poem (Blake's “The School boy”) twice, discussed in pairs and made notes on the poem handouts while talking about the mood of the poem, the sounds, colours, symbols, use of rhythm and so on.
- The Ss were encouraged to make a list of questions about the key words in the poem or if the Ss are emotionally stirred by the poem (reminding them of personal experience) to describe that personal association.
- As Ss re-read the poem they were asked to find any connections between the poem and the painting.
About 25-30 minutes
- The Ss were asked to form groups of four to six Ss and the Ss compare their lists and discuss what is explicit and implicit in the poem/painting
- The groups join to start a class discussion contrasting ideas and finding similar points of view.
The discussion has focused upon:
- how the picture and the text related
- perspective- the construction of the poetic image
- how words related to the design
- colours, associations with mood or feeling
- repeated motifs and shapes
As a result, the Ss became aware that There would appear common comments upon colours, symbolic details, setting, and story. Some of the Ss would have focused more on one of the aspects given; others would have given original interpretations to details. The range of comments shows the students’ “readings” of paintings and poems as compositions where colours, line, arrangement of details cohere to form images that allow interpretation in a narrative form. Without being given any other source of criticism about the artist, the Ss managed to understand and feel the meanings of the painting , respectively of the poem. By pairing off pictures and poems, the teacher can introduce and handle in a variety of ways the visual and verbal material, establishing a clear relationship between the reader, the painting and the poem. It is better to start with the painting so that the viewer’s response should not be limited by that of the poem.
Productionstage II About 120 minutes (2 weeks)
The visual interpretation project
Aims and objectives
- To encourage concentration on the process of writing through drafting, redrafting, and improving the quality of the content as well as the accuracy of the language used.
- To encourage self-evaluation and critical exchange of views on other’s writing. (The teacher is no longer the only “ultimate judge”)
- To foster the sense of cooperation (the teacher can play the role of a team’s advisor/ member)
- Last but not least, to gain the satisfaction of producing a close to perfect and original product that can be praised by the other students in the class/school when the project is exhibited in the classroom/ school exhibition.
The goal
To produce a poetry picture book picture book suitable for re-reading by children aged 9-11. The Ss involved in the project are in grades 7-8 (intermediate level)
It should be noted that the students have already had four lessons of intensive English classes a week, and this project is part of /and is carried out during the optional course syllabus “Art in the English speaking world” (one lesson of 50 minutes a week).
Phases in the project
- Ss gather material, do brainstorming activities
- choose pictures/illustrations (from the setting stage)
- draft a suitable poem/choose one from the ones learned
- write some comments around the poem
- Ss plan and organize the material
- write drafts, revise it critically
- Prepare the final version
- collate the book using the projects from the different groups
- produce covers (including pupils writing about themselves as authors, giving the name of a (fictitious) publisher, writing a blurb, listing other books by the author).
When we plan such a project activity, it is important to include enough time for our students to explore the topic thoroughly.
Students should be encouraged to write notes, to scribble ideas, to tear them up and to start again and again; only in this way will they be able to organize their piece of personal writing and present it in an accurate form.
Good English teachers know the art of eavesdropping, by establishing a tacit understanding with Ss that the classroom is organized around talk. The teacher should become a good listener, moving around the classroom, tuning into different groups, helping them to cope with the text. It is a challenging demand for more traditional teachers as it requires a bifocal awareness, which enables them to concentrate for a time on one group while simultaneously surveying and managing the whole class.
It is also a challenging experience for our students to present to themselves or each other what they think, to use reflection as a way of expressing ideas in a refined way, to compare their reflections with their peers. For EFL learners group work seems to be beneficial. Inexperienced students are less fearful and they exchange their ideas in their small group unthreatened. Maybe some aspects or areas of class management and control are sacrificed, but we always have to remember that it is the students and not we, the teachers who need to practice the language in practical use.
Evaluating the Project
By ensuring that the Ss knew who they were writing for was an important step in the planning of this project. The presence of a reader- a real one, that is not a judge, as the teacher is still strongly present and perceived as such even today in the traditionalistic style of teaching, by departing from it we will help the students to establish the goal of his project which is communication:
- Ss from different groups exchanged the projects, read them and provide for/against comments,expressed their oppinions and even prized the best project.
- The Teacher might invite 2-4 children of 9-11 from other grades he teaches in order to assess the books and to express their likes/dislikes.
After the project
The created books had been offered to the school library and displayed on a special shelf forexhibiting school projects. Hence there is a considerable success in realizing the aims of a project: the students feel more motivated, they clearly gain more confidence, the group work atmosphere is marvelous, and the project work process contributes to the creation of superb books. It is also worthwhile in terms of liaison between different grades in the school and encourages enthusiastic praise of the other teachers as well as the parents.
In this way a classroom activity can engage the students in a variety of language use, going beyond the usual phrases for giving directions, asking questions, etc. The longer the students work on a subject, the more their vocabulary develops; the more they learn about organizing the structure of a written text and the more original ideas they develop. Reading a poem and interpreting a painting will allow our students not only to learn about language, but also about the topic the language is dealing with.
Children’s appreciation of poetry will be enhanced if they are “exposed” to a wide variety of styles, voices, verse forms, and thus to seed of love for poetry is more likely to grow. The key is reflection - providing opportunities for children to read, make notes and share impressions in an informal atmosphere. We cannot speak of ONE method of teaching poetry, the teacher’s task is to choose the method according to the poem and painting the students are exposed to. By developing the students’ cultural and aesthetic motivation and strategies we focused our attention on activities meant to raise a comparative awareness of the students’ activities, to develop their artistic taste and creativity. Using the project work technique we offered our students the chance to acquire research, self-study and self-evaluation skills. The teacher’s and students’ involvement in the organization, development and evaluation of the project helps the students acquire more autonomy in the process of learning. Last but not least, as Michael Benton said in his “ Secondary worlds”, we should inculcate in our pupils the love for literary language. Creative art knowledge is thus meant to be a resource for developing linguistic, literary skills and cultural awareness.
Drew, E., Poetry - a modern guide to its understanding and enjoyment-Dell Publishing, New York.
Dolezel, L., Western Poetics
Maley, A. and Duff, A., The Inward ear- Poetry in the classroom - Longman,1995
Benton, M., Secondary worlds- Literature teaching and visual arts -Longman,1997
Raimes, A., Techniques in teaching writing-Oxford American English 1993
Fried -Booth, D. Project work- Longman 1993
Malcolm Livingstone – A teacher’s vision of Blake
June Singer - Blake, Young and the Collective Unconscious, The conflict between Reason and Imagination; Nicholas-Hays,Inc.2000
Humanism in Language Teaching. Oxford University Press.
Ronald Carter, Michael Long – Teaching Literature ELT J.1990
C.J. Brumfit;R.A. Carter – Literature and Language Teaching OUP 1986
Please check the Teaching through Art and Music course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
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