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  • The class so far has provided many ways that I can help differentiate lessons for students with different learning styles. I think that incorporating visual and audio supplemental materials will help my students that are visual and auditory learners relate to the curriculum.

  • I appreciate how the artwork has been listed in time periods.  As a third grade teacher, in the third world district of Alaska, pictures will invaluable to demonstrate how people live, and their cultural values.  I also think it is important to show how many groups of people have been oppressed, and the hardships they persevered.  

    I love art, and I think having students depict the artist's intent, can lead to great discussion points.  New vocabulary can also be introduced through visual art.

  • As a Language Arts teacher, I have a difficult time providing concrete context for some of the selections we are reading.  It is hard to justify dedicating huge amounts of time to read and/ or watch whole videos to set the stage for what we are reading.  Using images (and music) to help students picture and experience a particular era or reading selection seems like an effective way to provide background info without sacrificing the time that must be spent on reading or writing about the content.  I see this strategy enriching every era we focus on in American Literature.

    Specifically, I am excited to create lessons surrounding the Harlem Renaissance with the resources provided.  As such a vibrant era, I think it will really come to life if by including art, photography, and music.  I also loved the artist we saw today, Douglass (I think) and I look forward to students creating their own paintings mimicking his.

  • My current reflections:

    Wow, I can use so much of this in my classes. I currently teach US History and World History and know that I can easily intertwine this within my class setting. Our students often struggle with the text and this is a way to bring it all alive in such a way that would promote discussion and critical thinking. My students love looking at artwork, especially my upper-classmen. They like trying to build a story around pictures. The great thing about analysis of artwork is that it allows them to use their imagination to create their own story from their own experiences. That way when they learn the history behind the painting/picture they automatically have a way to connect it to their own lives. I love watching the students struggle to find the right words or expressions to go with what they are thinking.

    I love the idea of taking the poem The Colossus and putting it to pictures of immigration with pictures of what the students know here. In my mind I see the Colossus of Rhodes straddling Straight slough outside of Bethel. That would really bring it all to life. I bet you could do some photo analysis or layering to show students exactly how large the two statues were. That would be amazing.

    Anytime you can get students to form their own opinions (good/bad) about art, music, and film it allows them to develop the skills necessary to communicate, debate, and defend a position. I'll take that opportunity any day.

  • I'm appreciating the exposure to the visual arts. The resource books and stories behind the art is a great tool for engaging students in the period being studied.  Your step-by-step modeling (questioning) of how to look at different parts of a painting is helpful.  I also think that your modeling of taking small clips of a movie hooks a student into wanting to see the whole thing (on their own time) but still gives a feeling that they really understand the lesson.

  • The fifth grade curriculum is focused around regions of the United States.  There are a lot of great ideas to use when studying each region.  The colonial period and historical aspect of the Northeast the Southeast  gives way to many of the topics surrounding our culture today from the second amendment to immigration and everything in between. Having the students review some of the political cartoons of the different era of our history would be a great tool to use with fifth graders.  I think having the students create paintings or collages for each region and the diversity represented by the region would be awesome.

  • What I've liked the most so far is the focus on stories. I'd like to incorporate this idea into my social studies classes, where I bring the real-life stories of specific individuals from history to try to help my students appreciate, understand, connect with the content. 

    How I'm thinking of using this concept of art and photography in a current class would be to focus on advertising. I'm not currently teaching any history courses, but I'm teaching Consumer Life Skills so I'm thinking that I could tweak some of the strategies and concepts from this class and apply them to the analysis of advertisements. I don't know exactly what that looks like now, but I'm hoping that I can start to formulate a more concrete idea about this as we continue through this class (I'm open to suggestions, too!).

  • I have really enjoyed the class so far today.  Though I am not an artist, I LOVE looking at pictures and so do my students.  I am not one that likes to paint, but doing the color wheel was helpful so that I could analyze pictures better and try to understand more about what the artist is trying to get across.  I would not trust some of my high schoolers to paint though, so I might see if I could find a cleaner, quicker way to do the color wheel, so they could still get the general idea but with less mess or time.

    I REALLY enjoyed the movie clips of the Iron Jawed Angels, and can't wait to show it in my U.S. History class.  Most of my high school students that I have for history are very low readers and writers, and so often motivation is low as well.  I can see them instantly getting engaged into this movie and between it and using the historical photos, we can also do some great reflecting and writing activities as well. 

    Thank you so much!  This class has been really interactive and useful so far, and I would definitely recommend it to other teachers.

  • I find this type of instruction to be very effective - it speaks to me clearly and I think it speaks to my students.  It transcends language issues.  However, I always run into limits based on my own ability. 

    The instructors use the media to tell stories - stories which they know very well and which are clearly demonstrated with the photos and artworks they show.  Do I have these materials for my course?  I teach AK Studies, Gov't, and 8th Grade World History.  I have awesome photos available online, but NO analysis or context.  I SHOULD know the stories and be able to use the photos, but I don't.  I would need to commit to full-time research to collect significant photos write context and analysis for them, but if I could do that, I would quit my job and live off the royalties of my books.  I am not a historian.  I need a historian to sort through the materials out there and get me a collection of materials that support my learning goals. 

  • I have been teaching Alaska statehood so I would like to find images to help my students understand it more. When I took the Music and Dance class I used some images and music to teach my students, so this time I would to focus more on images and see if I can find any clips. 

    I liked the unit on Women's suffrage I just need to find a unit like that but more third and fourth grade friendly. I also like the idea of pulling social studies into story town. There are always social studies components we could pull in and use pictures and music to do so.

    I see how explaining things through pictures can really help them visualize and better understand.

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