Parker's student samples

 Below are some excerpts from how the arts have been woven into the ELA curriculum

English III final projects for Hamlet

A note from the artists:

"Expression and tone are very important to use in an act. My expression was aggressive and my tone was sarcastic. Hamlet jokes around sexually. Opehlia does not appreciate or respond to it. She is very modest and poised. Hamlet is very passive aggressive. He has a conflict between taking action versus inaction. Hamlet has feelings for Ophelia, but he doesn't act on it. He plays it off and Ophelia turns him down nicely."






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUkVT0yr55Y#t=11

Old King Hamlet Ghost Collage

A note from the artist:

"I used a unique collection of pictures to enforce that the viewer of this art work has to interpret its meaning. The viewer may find it easier once it has read this description. I used many different images to fill in the space that represents intense emotion. The empty space is used to show the confusion and  curiosity of the characters. Each character is very focused and intrigued by the ghost of Hamlet's father which is what is giving them scattered emotions."

Act 5.2 The Poisoned Cup

A note from the artist:

"In my diary entry, I chose fury and madness as my tone of voice. I used this tone because it expresses one of the emotions that Hamlet feels at that moment. These examples include lines like 'my mother has betrayed my father...everything seems depressing...things never get better, only worse.' The thing that captivates me in this soliloquy is the fact that he is mad that his mother, Gertrude, married Claudius."

The Poisoned Sword

A note from the artist:

"The artistic choice I chose was visual art. The sword is the color of the sword in the play, blackish gray and with red blood all over. It symbolizes King Claudius' blood when Hamlet stabbed him resulting with him dying."

A note from the artist:

"I decided to do my project on Hamlet and the Ghost because the Ghost is always appearing to Hamlet and tells him that his father was murdered and Hamlet had all this thought in his mind thinking of ways to get revenge for his father. The part of the story that stuck out to me is because the Ghost represents Hamlet's dad and he controls him almost."

Polonius Dies Visual Art

A note from the artist:

"The characters in this drawing are supposed to represent the Queen, Hamlet himself, and Polonius. The Queen is shown gasping at the sight of Hamlet stabbing Polonius through the curtain. I chose this angle of view to not only show how surprised the Queen looks but also the act of Hamlet stabbing Polonius without making it all look flat and unorthodox. This is the best angle, in my opinion, that could've been chosen to do this without the production of animation. I decided to make this black and white to show that this was an older time."

Behind the Arras: Polonius' Perspective

A note from the artist:

"The decision to recreate Polonius' point of view from behind the arras was chosen to further show Polonius' characterization of a scheming, sly, and meddling man. The pink fabric across the front represents the arras that the king and Polonius hide behind while spying on Hamlet and Ophelia. Once the fabric is moved to one side, a depiction of the scene that would have lain in front of Polonius is drawn."

Letter from Hamlet to Ophelia

A note from the artist:

"I chose Act 5 Scene 1 because Hamlet is shocked to see Ophelia's dead body. As I was reading I felt that Hamlet was regretting not telling Ophelia his true feelings about her. One line 270 Hamlet says 'I loved Ophelia forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum.'"

Ophelia's Suicide Note

A note from the artist:

"Act 4.5 expresses Ophelia's madness how she lost her mind after her father has died. Her whole character has done a 360. No one expected Ophelia's death it was surprising to everyone. Yes she committed a sin by killing herself but is surely missed. Her note is her exact words as she writes her last thoughts. It was more towards her brother Laertes the only one she really had left and Hamlet how he broke her heart."

Tragic Ending Dance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWvCSXtvfEA#t=10

Tragic Ending Dance

A note from the artists:

"We chose a dance because we thought it would be a good way to express the scene. We chose movement based on the characters and we use different levels and movements to create a tragic ending. The mood is sad, and song is slow and ballet-like."

"The tragic ending in this play is very clear, which is why I chose dramatic movement in my group's dance. All the characters are dying in the duel: 'O, yet defend me, friends, I am but hurt.' This shows and tells how Claudius is dying. Throughout our performance you'll see movement get more dramatic as the scene was as it got closer to everyone dying."

"We thought it was a creative and out of the box way to have the scene viewed. Our music choice brings out the emotion in our dance, and we used emotion on our face so people can understand how serious the scene is."

"The song we picked was 'Death is my heir' referring to the deaths of all the characters that ended to a tragedy, which was sad to see them go."

Hamlet & Laertes Duel Visual Art

A note from the artist:

"The reason I chose to draw Act 5.2 was because it had a lot of imagery. It also had a lot of dramatic action. Queen Gertrude drank the poison and eventually died. The King gets poisoned by Hamlet. Then Hamlet and Laertes stabbed each other. I chose to have Gertrude on the floor because she was poisoned and died in the scene. I also put the cup of poison next to her hand on the floor. Then I had Hamlet and Laertes wounded but Laertes is left stabbing Hamlet."

Hamlet's Guilt

Introduction to Romanticism

analysis of Romantic images: literary parallels

“The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,”

With this print, Goya is revealed as a transitional figure between the end of the Enlightenment and the emergence of Romanticism.n the image, an artist, asleep at his drawing table, is besieged by creatures associated in Spanish folk tradition with mystery and evil. The title of the print, emblazoned on the front of the desk, is often read as a proclamation of Goya’s adherence to the values of the Enlightenment—without Reason, evil and corruption prevail.

However, Goya wrote a caption for the print that complicates its message, “Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and source of their wonders.”

Qualities of Romanticism

Love of Nature

Idealization of Rural Living
Faith in Common People
Emphasis on Freedom and Individualism
Spontaneity, intuition, feeling, imagination, wonder
Passionate individual religiosity
Life after death
Organic view of the World

Students first described what they saw in detail: composition, color, texture, where and what was within the frame, color, textures, shapes, patterns, symmetry, objects. They then followed with a written analysis of how these were employed to to show literary aspects of Romanticism.

Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare

Saturn Devouring His Children by Francisco Goya

Wivenhoe Park by John Constable

The Wanderer by Casper Friedrich

Liberty   by Eugene Delacroix

Fur Traders  by Caleb Bingham

Parker Post for pages 55-63

Sorry for the confusion in posting my response this way. For some reason, it won't let me post my second response of the day.

So here's pages 33-63: Common Core's Basic Set of Concepts Adapted.

Parker- response to Common Core’s Basic Set of Concepts Arts Adapted

This chapter, which was written to give pragmatic examples of how to meld the arts in one’s curriculum, appeared to drift from the previous chapter’s idea of “common habits” through mind.  Perhaps this is a natural extension of the laying out the facts, a step by step guide must have rules and weights, much like a recipe. Having said that, there is, nevertheless, room for much creativity, a bit more pepper, I think.

Having a background in art history, I naturally include visuals wherever possible. As with ELA- and any discipline-the students must have a working vocabulary. By high school, they should have a functional knowledge of the lingua franca of literary elements and figurative language.  I cannot imagine a class where at some point these terms are not referenced, as part of a conversation. Character, plot, dialogue, theme, tone and setting are fundamental frameworks, never mind the figurative language   devices, ranging from metaphor to oxymoron, onomatopoeia to allusion and, of course the holistic sense experience of imagery.   Frameworks organize, construct and balance, as does the frame of a piece of art, and by that I do not necessarily mean a geometrical, physical construct, for light, shade, space, emotions and imagination may equally define a work of art. (Did I catch them all?)  Taylor organizes his suggestions under key ideas, virtually all of which are easily integrated into the ELA /social studies curriculum. I struggle with math and science. Your thoughts?  Getting back to vocabulary, he neglects to mention that whatever artistic discipline one is incorporating as a conduit in support of the standards needs to provide a foundational vocabulary, be it in the visual arts, theatre, music, film or dance. Granted there are numerous parallels among them, but in order to explain, compare and contrast, analyze and interact, the artistic language must be taught. How can one speak of connotations and symbolism without an understanding of the historicity of a work, as well as color, line, shape, texture, value and form?   What a student sees in the blocking of a play speaks louder that the read text.  Even though the common core emphasizes building vocabulary through contextual clues, the instructor must at the minimum provide the language dots, for the student to fill in the picture.

Back to Taylor’s samples. I dare say many of these we have employed in our classes. For those of us with Regents exams, one has to be mindful of the data driven outcome. What is wonderful about his suggestions is that they align so well with ways to differentiate instruction, offering a rich pathway though understanding to synthesizing the material for all students.  Our school, however, is challenged by limited access to technology, at least for ELA teachers. As well, I attest to great frustration with group projects, because of absenteeism, even for legal excuses.  That said, my English 111 culminated their Hamlet unit with an artistic product, as 50% of their grade. They were extremely successful, ranging from physical artifacts, to interpretive dance and letters of confession. I have photos to share of all of these.  I have used Ingres’ painting      with  the painting of the Duke of Ferrara as a way of exposing the nefarious character in Browning’s “MY Last Duchess”   

             

As an introduction to Romanticism, the students first reviewed 8 qualities associated with Romanticism, then we spent a class reviewing an assortment of Romantic paintings. Using a graphic organizer, they describe something they saw in the painting, then connect it to an aspect of Romanticism and then explain why they made the connection. This was in preparation for Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Marinier”, which we partnered with Gustave Dore’s drawings.

Final thoughts: What I would like to see is a required course as part of the undergrad or graduate curriculum. (I know I am dating myself, but back in the day, all future ELA teachers were required to have nine credit hours in the arts- and a grammar course, but we don’t need that any longer.) Ideally, the arts should be a natural part of our thinking, and most perfectly augments the common core standards.

Please post in the comments section below.  Put your name at the heading for each entry.

            a.)  A response to the current reading (pp 55-63)  please include page number and

      quotes to make your references easier to follow, by 12/29/14.

b.)  Respond to two CLC member reading submissions, by 1/5/14.

Please post in the comments section below.  Put your name at the heading for each entry

             a.) A suggestion for a unit and lessons you are interested in developing and teaching later this                   Winter or Spring.   Include how you see your plans aligning to the common core anchor                       standards as we have seen in Taylor’s book.   Also, brainstorm some formative and                               summative assessments you might use with the lessons, by 12/29/14. 

 b.) Respond with constructive suggestions and feedback to 2 member lesson suggestions by                1/5/14.

Common Sense Arts Standards Chapter 2

Next meeting is December 18  in room 324 

Rudy and Canfield attended a seminar last spring with the book’s author, Bruce Taylor, and reflected on how useful and relevant the material in Common Sense Arts Standards seemed to developing contemporary arts curriculum aligned with the CC. Common Sense Arts Standards also holds relevant content for academic teachers seeking to utilize more arts content in their CC lessons.

On Thursday, November 20, we met to discuss chapter 2. You should have received a copy in your mailbox. There is also a copy on hold in the library. If you were unable to attend, please respond to the following questions and post to the blog. This is done in the comments section at the end of this post.

1  a. What is crucially important for your students to learn in the course of your time with them? 

    b. How can you use an arts based lesson to help in this goal?

2 What unit later in the year can you begin to rework for the purpose of the PD? Please consider this a real unit the will be taught in you classroom, reflected upon and used as evidence of process and student outcomes for the purpose of this PD.

If you are unable to attend the meeting tomorrow please respond with two observations from the reading material and your responses to the 2 questions above.