(4) Service Learning Observation: Beattie Elementary School (10/21/22)

This observational blog post will serve as more of a reflective space, as Molly and I presented and implemented the emergent lessons derived from the previous blog. I will discuss the effectiveness of the lessons as determined by the documented artifacts below.

Learning Outcome: After this demonstration, students will be able to know about other artists who tell stories with books.

(I will only be focusing on the Artists Who Tell Stories lesson as Molly conducted documentation and planning for Paper Textures.

Artifact #1: Proof it Happened

This video serves to demonstrate that students actually engaged with the book studio. This student in particular actually made art first, and then returned the book studio afterwards. I noticed that this was the case with several artists as they had ideas for their work that they had to "get out of their system" and then they came to my studio to see what I had brought for them to look at. When I look at this video, I also think of the fact that only 6-7 students engaged with this studio, which is about a third of the class. I am not really sure if this is as positive or a negative, which leads me to artifact #2...

Artifact #2: Feedback from Ms. Noel (notes written from interaction)

After the lesson commenced, Ms. Noel offered very valuable feedback regarding the studios that we provided. She said that she had the following observations:

My reflection/reaction to each feedback is noted under each bullet in black text.

• First graders had a hard time choosing between 5 studios, instead of their usual 4.

When I created this emergent curriculum, I hadn't realized that I was already making the studio atmosphere more complex by adding to more studios instead of one. Because of this, students were overwhelmed by choice, which is something that always needs to be considered in a TAB classroom.

• The ideas presented to students about the studios were a little too complex for them. For example, narratives and story-telling could have been explained in relationship to a story that students try to tell.

Students had a hard time connecting the experiences of illustrators to their own. If I ever present this studio again, I will consider having students explore and understand what an illustrator does and have them make connections between themselves and this discipline/profession.

• First graders need more direct instruction from their teachers, For example, instead of just explaining my studio to students, I should have told them something like, "Friends, I will be looking at the book Journey with four other artists on the rug."

I was kindly reminded that if you want younger students to "stretch and explore" you have to ask them to do so. When teachers invite a specific number of students to their studio, it tells students that there are important ideas to be explored.

• Our ideas were solid, they just needed to be manipulated for the minds of first graders more.

Artifact #3: Analyzing an Illustrator's Choices

In this video, we see a student making connections between artists. They say, "this is just like in Harold The Purple Crayon." The student is explaining that illustrators use similar tactics to promote narrative without the use of words in their books. The tactic that this artist is referring to is how the artist uses a specific color that the reader is to track and look for as they flip through the pages. The tactic sometimes forces the reader to back through the book to analyze more images and moments:

As you can see the student is retracing steps to understand the narrative of the story. In another lesson/unit/studio I might have students make connections between illustrator and painters as they also paint elements that the reader can track as they interpret the work.

Artifact #4: Understanding Art as Narrative

Shortly after the interaction of the following video, I ask the student what they think about artists who make books and they reply:

"Pretty good."

I ask, "Why do you think it's good?"

They reply "I don't really know."

In this moment, I understand that students have yet to develop the vocabulary and sentence structures to explain to me how they know what artists are doing is effective.

Students were only successful in communicating about art when they shared their work with one another through a "TAG" game at the end of class. TAG stands for:

T - Tell someone what you created

A - Ask someone a question about their art

G - Give a compliment about someone else's art.

(Students were also provided with sentence starters for each category.)

When students were discussing each other's artwork, I noticed that they reversed the structure to "What do you like about my artwork?" This forced students to really analyze each other's works and take note of artistic choices. It makes me realize that I should have asked the student who said that the book was "pretty good," "What do you like about this book and why do you think that is?"