journal #1

Double Entry Journal- Chapter 1:  Teaching the Language Arts

Kimberly Artman- August 25, 2012

     Pamela Farris draws our attention to the importance of language in the book Language Arts: Process, Product, and Assessment.  She introduces the typical use of language arts with the beginning teacher (pg. 1-5) that uses popular children’s’ literature to entice open ended questions.  This sparks a discussion among the children and the teacher guides the discussion to include phonemic awareness, grammar and vocabulary with a word wall supporting the book she is reading.  This whole language approach is different than years past.  In the 1800’s the teaching method of choice was lecture style with a “listen only” mentality as the teacher was the only oral participant.  In the 1900’s however phonics were introduced as well as silent reading.  Basal readers became popular in 1950’s and individual integration along with whole language learning was introduced in the 70’s and 80’s.  It wasn’t until the turn of the century that balanced reading, including phonics and comprehension came into play.  The No Child Left Behind Act was introduced and the government held schools accountable for all children to become proficient in reading and math.  This high expectation to have all children reading at grade level, frustrated teachers and new techniques, in various forms, were applied.  Farris suggests teachers use a whole language approach that includes listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing and visual representation.  Farris says “As teachers we must understand each of the language arts individually so that we can better teach them in integrated fashion.” (pg. 32)

     I have been teaching for 10 years and it seems there is always a pendulum swing in styles of teaching.  Teachers are being introduced to new methods of curriculum instruction it seems on a yearly basis.  When No Child Left Behind came out in 2002, teachers were held accountable for instructing students to pass a test which heavily focused on reading and math.  All students were expected to be at grade level regardless of background, race, or cultural influence.  The expectations were set to high to not take into account all aspects of a students learning.  I teach visual arts and I did a year of student teaching in the 4^th grade classroom.  I asked the mentor teacher when I could incorporate more lessons that were visually stimulating integrating the arts to other subject area like Science, History, and Handwriting. I believed artwork would grab their attention and make learning more enjoyable.  She said the school system had adopted special books and teachers were to stick to the material. Math and reading were to take up the majority of the instructional time with little allowance for other areas.  It was if teachers were expected to follow a plan set forth by the school board and administration that allowed little diversity of the daily, scheduled routine.  I incorporated Readers Theater to add drama integrated with their daily reading.  I also incorporated journal writing and drawing into students reflections after an oral reading of a piece of literature.  I added a 3D assignment (sculpture) into the research of pit houses on a unit of Southwest Native Americans.  I have always thought that the arts were a vital aspect into any core subject area.  I love that this book believes on the integration of all styles of learning including visual representation.  Each child needs to experience lessons using all types of senses including sight, sound, and touch.  The fine arts bridge the learning style gap through music, dance, theater, singing, and visual arts.  

Journal #7

Double Entry Journal- Chapter 7:  Listening

Kimberly Artman- October 27, 2012

I really liked this chapter.  I believe skills in listening are needed in our society now more than ever.  Students are inundated with sound from cell phones, television, games, computers, iPods, and other interactive media.  I like that Farris mentions the different levels of listening like marginal, appreciative, attentive and critical.  Most people believe listening is just an on and off activity like a light switch.  I was also encouraged to use a higher level thinking technique by answering questions about the book that is going to be read like describing characters, sequence, cause and effect, compare and contrast, making predictions, and solving problems.  I believe by telling the students that these questions will be forthcoming it makes the student anticipate finding the answers.  Another thing I think people (teachers) forget to do on a daily basis is to create an environment for listening.  Some of the ways mentioned in chapter 7 included providing a purpose, providing follow up, and listening to other students when they are speaking.  I enjoy readers theater for this purpose because the students are waiting for their part to come up and have to follow along in the skit to know their place.  I am also going to incorporate the hand and finger method to make sure that special need and ELL students know the 5 given questions after a story is read (setting, characters, problem, plot, and resolution).

I don’t think I told you the story about one of the kindergarten classes that I teach once a week.  Well actually I have many stories and kindergartners are usually the main characters (so this is an additional story to ones I have already told you about).  At the beginning of the year I know kindergarten students don’t work long on manners or behavior in the classroom as they are new to the school environment.  A major component of classroom management is getting and keeping the students attention.  Kindergartners are very exuberant and it is hard to keep their attention for more than a few minutes at a time.  I wanted them to listen and told them I couldn't hear all their voices at once and needed to have them raise their hand when they want to talk.  As soon as I said this about half of their hands were in the air talking as if I had given them permission.  I said “why are you all talking at once?  I told you to raise your hands if you wanted to talk” and one boy said “we were raising our hand and talking” and then I knew it was the way I phrase the question.  This of course made me smile and shake my head.  I began my lesson after rephrasing the way I needed to talk before they were allowed to talk.  I was talking about colors and the feelings each color may portray.  I explained warm and cool colors on the color wheel and told them that the warm colors are happy, exciting, and fun and the cool colors were calm, relaxing, and even sad.  I then asked the kids to cut out pictures that had cool colors like purple, green, and blue from magazines and that they could only use cool colors.  One little boy was seated at the table and was pasting pictures very fast and full of excitement.  I looked at his paper and there wasn’t any cool colors but pictures of sneakers, sports cars, and music.  I asked him how those were cool colors and he said “you said to cut out the cool pictures and these things are cool to me”.  Then the kids in the classroom started to make comments like “Well I want a car on my paper” or “ I can add jewelry then” and I explained that it had to be one of the cool colors.  One student asked “cool to you and other art people or cool to kids?”  I started laughing and said that I didn’t make up the color wheel and I would like to stick to the rules of art.  I guess cool is different when you're 5 then when you are 42.

Journal #6

Double Entry Journal- Chapter 6:  Speaking

Kimberly Artman- October 14, 2012

Few things get me on a soap box and stressing the importance of creativity in children is one that I can’t hold back on.  When reading chapter 6 on speaking Farris points out the origins of language and the importance of the environment in which the students are raised in.  She also goes into detail on how as infants we learn to develop sound into words and eventually into sentences.  The use of oral skills is of utmost importance in society.  Communication is found everywhere and using oral language helps people put their thoughts into speaking, thinking, writing, and listening.  Conversational skills are needed now more than ever with the electronic era at hand.  When I asked a student to read back his notes on the elements of art he didn’t say anything.  I asked him to help me understand what he had written and he responded “I can’t read my writing”.  I asked him how he expected me to read it and he said “because you’re the teacher”.  I find all the skills found in language arts to be of vital importance in helping our students succeed in the future….just as I do creativity.

 Now… on my soap box I go….. I have always liked language and the study of words as stressed by Farris in chapter 6.  The chapter went on to linking oral skills in literature, poetry, choral speaking, and reading out loud.  Farris then started to highlight creativity as an important dynamic in the classroom.  I thoroughly enjoyed her views on readers theater, storytelling, and media as a creative outlet for speaking.  I began reading her stance on drama and puppetry and loved her connection to them as an extension of creative play.  I knew early on in life that I wanted to be a teacher of some sort of art (music, dance, theater, art, etc) because I was a visual learner.  Unfortunately many teaching styles only cater to those who can memorize and test well.  I liked the feeling of being in art class as I felt they spoke my language… creativity!  Sometimes I think we forget that many of our students are dominated by the right side of the brain.  Their language isn’t spoken frequently so it is important we allow them that outlet of expression through the arts.  I have been an art advocate for many years.  I believe art should be considered a core subject like math and reading.  I have run an after school arts program for the last 9 years.  Students could enroll in any art club for free of charge for a couple hours a week (see photos above).  As director of the program I enrolled approximately 150 to 170 students in various art clubs per semester.  Students enjoyed art, music, dance, theater, puppetry, dance, singing, crochet, digital arts, and set design.  I hired mostly Educational Assistants as most the licensed teachers were handling their classroom work after school.  This year our district implemented a rule that does not allow EA’s to put in extra time outside their regularly scheduled work week.  I lost all my arts teachers and now the program has been put on hold.  Licensed teachers do not have the time and professional artists don’t want to hassle with the hiring process through the schools.  I am devastated as we touched so many children's lives and invited the public to assemblies, shows, and displays throughout the years.  I implore anyone reading this to help the arts stay in schools and defend the creativity, imagination, and problem solving skills found only in the arts. Please look into Americans for the arts at artsusa.org as this organization is dedicated to keeping arts in the schools.  They have wonderful information and ways to contribute in your own school system.  I am thankful to Dr. Harvey for stressing the importance of art and the connection it plays in a well rounded student.

Journal #4

Double Entry Journal- Chapter 4:  Children’s Literature

Kimberly Artman- September 20, 2012

     Once again Pamela Farris has another informational chapter in Children’s Literature.  She explains that there are many aspects to making a well written children’s book.  She describes the importance of various aspects in literary elements such as characterization, plot, setting, theme, style and illustration.  Farris goes into further detail showing the different genre’s of children's literature like traditional, modern fantasy, contemporary realistic fiction, historical fiction, biography and autobiography, informational and poetry.  One of the things that she also covered was multicultural books which expose children to different cultures.  Some  of the many books I have on my shelf are about cultures like Hispanics, Chinese, African Americans, and Native Americans.  I was excited to see that there is criteria set forth in multicultural books as some are indeed biased and not written to educate and connect various groups.  She also mentions thematic units for children and expanding these units to integrate Science, History,  and cultural studies. 

     I decided to do a thematic unit on storytelling.  I use the long connected computer paper and spread it out on my cafeteria tables.  The students were divided into groups of three and were given two sections of the paper.   The child that was sitting on the far left was to do the title page and first page of the book, the student in the middle had come up with a climatic point in the story, and the student at the end was to wrap up the story and provide a moral or lesson that was learned.  I also decided to use a different theme at each table so the whole class had to come up with a different story based on the books placed in front of them.  The sections of books for this theme based group lesson included some of the following categories:  Sea Life, Trains, Native Americans, Colors, Animals, Fantasy characters, and famous artists.  Children were told to look through the books but not copy the existing story but one that was produced by their specific group.  One group had famous artists and the books in front of them contained cartoon images by Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, Vincent Van Gogh, and Salvador Dali.  They were doing fine until one of the children started to cry.  She was the analytical, fact driven child.  I asked her why she was upset and she told me that they were drawing the book all wrong.  I asked her group what that story was about and it was based off a book by Salvador Dali called Dali and the Path of Dreams.  Dali was a surrealist and the book involved an adventure with long legged elephants, flying clocks and a magic key.  The students in the group decided to come up with a story with talking eggs, a giant cat, and an ice cream house.  The little girl was disturbed because she was at the beginning and drew a big cat.  The student in the middle drew eggs walking down a path looking out for the giant cat and the last student wrapped up the story with the cat leaping on the eggs before reaching the ice cream house.  She was upset that the story didn’t make sense and that cats wouldn’t eat eggs and if the cat did pounce on them that they would break.  Furthermore the ice cream house would melt as she drew a bright sun on her paper with the giant cat.  This was my first experience explaining that surrealist like imagination and the story doesn’t have to make sense.  She said she needed another piece of paper to take out the sun to make the story believable.  I let her redraw her part to specifications.  She was a cute child but needed to loosen up a little in imagination driven books.

  

Journal #3

Double Entry Journal 3

The author points out three main learning theories:  innative, constructivist, and behaviorist.   Each theory has a suggestion on how a child learns language.  Whether a person believes in the environment making a large impact, human intelligence programmed at birth, or driven out of reinforcement, those of us teaching needs to be aware of each theory as we design lesson plans.  Vygotsky’s belief in the zone of proximal development is that a child will use language to help them solve problems. When a child needs help and can be assisted by another person (or group) they are building on knowledge and learning a task through the assistance of language.  I especially like the breakdown of multiple intelligences into diverse categories:  linguistic, musical, logical-mathmatical, spatial, body-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, naturalist, existentialist and spiritualistic intelligence.  So many times teachers forget that students learn on many different levels.  Children can fit into several of these categories and teachers need to diversify their methods of instruction to hit many diverse learners. Students can learn in a variety of ways and styles.  Having a classroom with an inviting environment will stimulate and motivate children to learn at a higher level while having fun.

     One of my favorite things to teach students (from kindergarten to fifth grade) is to learn the famous pieces of art.  I start off with ten pictures at the lower grades and eventually work up to thirty artworks by fifth grade.  Sometimes I have to offer hints as to what might be in the title of the artwork.  I use popular pieces like The Mona Lisa, Blue Boy, Whistlers Mother, The Scream, Starry Night, American Gothic, Blue Vase, Sunflowers, Waterlillies, Three Musicians, Girl with the Pearl Earring, The Old Guitarist, Still Life with Apples, Dance Class, and I and the Village to name a few.  Some paintings were easy to remember (Blue Vase, Dance Class, Sunflowers, The scream, etc.) while others we would need to give hints.  While flashing a card of Whistler’s Mother, I puckered my lips to show whistling and when the flash card of Girl with the Pearl Earring came up I would point to my ears.  One picture always stumped the class and that was American Gothic.  One day a student raised his hand enthusiastically and said “Mrs. Artman, I know where I saw this picture!” and I was so happy that someone recognized it for once.  I asked him “Where did you see it?” and he said “oh that’s easy…. Squidward did it on SpongeBob Square Pants!”.  I gave a big smile and the class started to discuss the episode it was on.  Another child said “Can I tell you where I saw another one of the pictures?” and I thought…. what the heck…. We are learning from SpongeBob…. and told the child to tell me her memory of a piece of art.  She said she knew The Last Supper and saw it every Sunday.  I said “I don’t think it’s the real one, it must be a print.” and the child said “No my grandma looks at it after church when we eat and says a prayer to the guys playing cards at the table.” I decided I was done with explaining prints and moved on to another lesson.  Yup…. They keep me on my toes!