Day 2: The Gleaner

We like this shared debriefing, so we'll continue. It's interesting to learn each of our viewpoints on what happened.

Today we started at 1:30, Friday afternoon, and the weather and the room were incredibly hot! When I entered the children were working at their centers for the first time- this is a group-independent activity. Today I saw one table working on reading and listening to themselves say poems, one group was doing First in Math on the computers, another was creating an autobiographical picture timeline, another was making a comic strip with dialogue, another was practicing reader's theatre, etc. It was great to see that Mrs O' Donnell uses artistic and creative activities to help kids learn all the time.

I started off by learning all the kids' names by table, and reviewing them as we'd run out of time in the first session.Then we began by reviewing what was learned the lesson before. "What elements of art did we learn on Wednesday" (kids responded geometric, organic, etc), Cindy showed me the Main Idea Umbrella and detail raindrops organizer the kids have been using. We drew 2 big umbrellas on the board for our 2 elements learned so far and I elicited what big idea geometric and organic falls under (SHAPES!). I then elicited LINE and supporting details thick, thin, curved, straight, wavy, etc. I explained we would learn one or 2 more elements that would help us talk about art.
At this point we got interrupted by a fire drill! Luckily I'd already been through one at Comly and was familiar with the route. While waiting outside I tried to remember their names now that they were all mixed up, not by table order. When we came back upstairs I had the kids do some breathing exercises to help them calm down and cool down from the jaunt outside and down and back up the stairs.
I asked for a helper table for passing out our pencils and sketchbooks, and Cindy helped set up our computer and projector. I played the video from artist's toolkit  for color, which shows primary and secondary colors twice. I did call and response for "Red, Yellow, Blue, Primary too, Primary Colors, Red, Yellow, Blue". I drew the main idea umbrella for Color with details Primary and the supporting details of individual color names on the board. I asked the students to find their red, yellow, and blue pencils to make their personal notes/diagrams in their sketchbooks, labeled primary colors. After checking around the room and sharing how some of the students had organized their information, I did the same for Secondary colors. I did call and response for "Orange, Purple, Green, Secondary, Secondary colors, Orange, Purple, Green", and had the students mark their sketchbooks with secondary colors.
I brought focus back to the screen to play the "Depth" clip on the artist's toolkit website. I pointed out how shapes are big in the foreground to show they are close to us, and shapes are small in the background to show they are far away from us. I played it again so the students could make note of where objects were placed in the picture and how their sizes made the space convincing. After some more questions from the students, we got ready for the next step.
I asked the students to get out a gluestick and turn to a fresh page. We'd been working with only one page visible, but I wanted them to open it up flat with two facing pages empty and with the book turned. I selected a student from my helper table and pulled out the photocopies of The Gleaner to pass out. Ms McCaffrey, our  resource support teacher reminded me I should tell them which orientation to paste the picture into their books. We passed out the copies and the students glued it in their sketchbooks. I pulled up a powerpoint for The Gleaner on the screen. I had the kids write down the title, artist's name, and date. I asked them to repeat the name after me "zhawn-franswa meelay" (Jean-Francois Millet). I compared the image info with the title and author of a book. While they wrote, I told them about Millet's life, born on a farm, had 9 kids, often painted life he saw in the countryside in France. Looking at the date we noted it was in 1857, about 150 years ago- Cindy reminded the kids about how they have been learning how to subtract years to figure out time between events. I asked them if they or I or Ms O'Donnell were alive in 1857 (Nooooo). I said we could put images into time lines and asked them if William Penn, whom they'd been studying, came before or after this picture, (before).
We looked at the color image of The Gleaners, and I asked the students what colors they saw (green, white, blue, orange, etc). I asked them what shapes they saw in the image (circles, rectangles, squares) and asked them to trace over their copy to find the shapes they saw. I explained all artworks use basic shapes for the composition, even if it's realist art. We compared realist art, something the artist really saw and tried to paint exactly to non-fiction literature, and imaginative/abstract art to fiction.
I explained that artists use a similar process as writers, starting with a sketch. I showed them Millet's first sketch, and first painting version of The Gleaners, and compared it to their writing organizer and first draft. Then I showed them Millet's 2nd and 3rd sketches for The Gleaners and explained that artists edit and change their paintings just like writers edit and change their stories. I showed a comparison of the first version and the final version and asked students to identify what was different (background up close/far away, colors are different, vertical to horizontal orientation). I asked them if both pictures tell the same story? Do they have the same Main idea? When they weren't sure I asked is it more important if what the women are DOING is the same, or that WHERE they ARE important? They agreed "What the women are doing" is the most important. One student noticed that they ARE in the same place, but that they are closer to the background in the first version, and farther away from the background in the final painting. We confirmed that the MAIN IDEA of the Gleaners was the same in both, just some of the DETAILS had changed.
I showed them an engraving Millet had made of the Gleaners to further illustrate the writing comparison. Finally I showed them a progression slide that has the sketch-first version-new sketch-final-painting-and engraving to compare with the writing process of organizer-first draft-editing-final version-publishing.
We reached the end of the session and half the class had to get ready to leave. While we waited for the bell I reviewed the information we'd covered that day. "What for elements of art do you remember now?" (color, line, shape, space), "Who remembers the title of the painting we looked at?" (The Gleaners) "Can anyone remember the artist's name?" (this was tough) I explained next time we'd be writing about the painting. Cindy suggested I check my knowledge of their names again by selecting students to get packed up to leave.

As the elements of Art lesson took longer, and the fire drill interrupted us, we got a little behind. we've chosen to add a Monday visit to next week to accomplish our writing objectives before the trips come up. We also decided to continue working on the Gleaner, to work more in depth, and perhaps not do the Quilter photograph as a writing prompt. We 'll change the Fur Traders to a narrative writing, as this matches time-wise more with what the students are supposed to be learning in their literacy standards. I may need to change the four-square I made to simplify the information. The kids are much lower level than I'm aware, and I need help making the activities more level-appropriate. This rings true with my idea that residency artists need a lot more professional training on childhood development and different learning speeds.