You’ll remember that I recently went to an OMA workshop with Suzanne, our OMA person. http://www.omaproject.org So this week I’m trying to put some of that training to use.
Years ago, when I lived in Wisconsin, I went with Carla and Anthony down to the Art Institute in Chicago. It was an incredible experience, and I bought two prints. One was Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. So I figured out how to use this in class — I can use art if I can work it into a writing class. We are (all) doing persuasive writing this quarter, so it’s just a wee bit tricky. A lot of what I did for today’s part (I foresee this being all week long) was based on what we did at the workshop with a different picture, but some wasn’t.
First I explained what we were doing, and about my trip to the museum. I drew a line on the board to show how long ten feet is, because that’s how wide the painting is. That actually covered most of the board. We talked about Seurat and pointillism, or as much as I could based on last night’s research and the fact that I never studied art.
I had copied from the internet the picture onto paper, two copies per sheet, so that each child could have his or her own copy to look at. I had them glue them into their writing notebooks (note — these writing notebooks should be found in the writing bin and not the science or math bins, in case you weren’t sure). Their job was then to write questions and observations in their notebook. They didn’t need a ton, just enough to get started.
At the workshop, we said these things aloud and one person wrote them all down. Not me!! So what I did was I made four extra copies of the painting, and posted them onto huge teacher paper. Then I divided them into four groups. They needed to write down what they came up with, as well as come up with more observations and questions. These are ways to interact with the painting, not just glance at it and move on. We’ve never done this before, so I wasn’t sure how it would work. I was very brave.
They noticed things that I hadn’t (in spite of how long I had the print!), and also noticed what wasn’t there, like the lack of boys, ducks, birds, etc. They really did an awesome job –much better than I thought, but they did just what I’d hoped, and they totally got into it!
