Author: mleeburn

I found the examples used by Zwiers in Chapter 6 to be very helpful to begin to imagine how a question can turn into a good question that encourages academic discussion. I particularly liked the open ended questions that “connect to students’ lives and allow for personalized, divergent responses.” I like that it allows for more imaginative responses while still having students think about the content from various perspectives. A few of the examples were “If you were a colonist, would you have…? Why? Would you have done what the main character did? How would you like to be a whale? How would you use geometry to build a house?” I have tried to think about how to make these types of questions relevant in a visual arts classroom and have come up with a few questions:

If you were a curator, would you include this artwork in your exhibition? Why?

What would you have done if you were trying to shock the art community at the time?

How would you like to be a clay sculpture going through the firing and glazing processes? Why?

If you could be a colleague of another artist in a period of art history who would you be friends with? Why?

I found the group presentation and reading this week quite helpful in thinking about academic discussions. For me, this type of learning makes a lot of sense. I find I engage and remember information better when it is presented in a conversational and dynamic way. There are certainly spaces in art education where I think these discussion techniques could be used effectively such as controversial art pieces in public art, galleries and museums, social justice issues to inform an artwork or finding themes and big ideas within different works and texts. I think these kind of discussion, if executed well would also help to build a classroom community that is positive and generous with their ideas. Ideally, this community would make it easier for students to share their personal thoughts, ideas and artwork. I think there is also sometimes an assumption that art is not academic, (I of course disagree) and this would be a great way to introduce students to the idea that art is about ideas.

-Meghan Leeburn

I really enjoyed working on the lesson plan with my group this week because it helped to think about how the concepts we have been exploring through our courses are able to be put into practice. It also allowed us to think about our ” expert blind spots” which Zwiers explains “… keep us from realizing much of our complex and abstract knowledge has become concrete and basic to us” (Zwiers 69-70) When sharing our lesson plan (visual arts) with the group from another discipline I realized that I had made a few assumptions of past knowledge, some about language but also about general trends in Art History. It is also becoming more evident that time is a major factor, as it is we had a hard time fitting our content into the class time and to adequately address the needs of ELL students it will require a great deal of patience and time. I have also found in some art teaching experience that this exists in material knowledge. It will also be important in my discipline to scaffold actions that I take for granted, for example how to hold a paintbrush or how to mix green paint.

-Meghan Leeburn

I found this chapter very helpful to think about my own use of language and questions. I was particularly interested in the author’s criticism of teacher questioning and the way in which questions are overused and often rhetorical. I think that this is probably common for teachers because of their experience as a student. It is a kind of default teacher way of speaking.  Building academic language for my discipline, Visual Art, I think would be as challenging as with the examples in the language arts, science and mathematics but because the output or assignments are expressed as a visual literacy rather than a linguistic one, we might overlook the language element and neglect to build up our student’s academic language. While the emphasis on visual rather than written in art may be welcoming for English language learners, I think art has a special ability to strengthen language in that it is inherently multimodal and connections with visuals, ideas and language can be strengthened.

Meghan Leeburn

September 22 (sorry blog troubles)

I worry about the use of the English language and how it can create a de-valuing of certain students’ home languages when their mother tongue is not valued in school settings. I worry about the hierarchy that can be created and that students might not develop unique kinds of knowledge that are specific to their languages. This also has significant implications for the aboriginal population in Canada and how our institutions are in effect continuing with a colonization through language. As a visual arts teacher candidate I have a few ideas about how I could attempt to address some of these concerns in my own teaching practice. I think I would like to allow students to work in their visual journals through the planning process in their mother tongues. I think this would provide the opportunity to use the knowledge and experience they bring from their home language into their planning and process work and ultimately into their artwork.

Meghan Leeburn