Blog Topic 8

This week, my students completed a VTS of the following image:

So far, I think I am doing a nice job at a few things.  One positive aspect of my VTSing has been my positivity.  I have great relationships with my students, and this makes for a really happy and easygoing atmosphere.  The sense of trust that provides definitely enhances our VTS discussions.  I also feel that I am getting better at listening to what my students are saying.  This makes it easier to paraphrase what they have said.  I can see vast growth since the beginning of the semester with my peers, especially in regard to listening and paraphrasing.

I still feel surprised at how uncomfortable I was doing VTS at the museum yesterday.  I think the acoustics of the room and my difficulties hearing definitely played in to that a lot, but I would like to continue working on being able to do these lessons in any situation.  As I move forward in this course, I would like to continue to work on paraphrasing and determining when to use the second question.

Some interesting things my kids noticed about this photo were:

• a sense of old vs. new due to new clothing, old house and furniture
• a sense of destruction due to the peeling paint
• a sense of loneliness due to lack of a decorated space
• the possibility of a flood or water damage due to the peeling paint and clothesline (drying out)

I was surprised a how long we talked about this image.  When I first saw it, it seemed a bit one note, and when our discussion went on for about fifteen minutes, I couldn't believe it.  One student who has yet to participate said something this week, so that is something to be proud of.

Blog Topic 7

After reading Philip Yenawine's piece on VTS and information, I was really struck by his comparison of viewing art to reading a text (since art IS a visual text anyway...).  Yenawine stated that art, like a text, needs to be considered from multiple perspectives.  Yenawine says, "...we feel that capacities to observe, think about what one sees, reflect on meanings, and consider various interpretations are basic to art viewing and the prerequisites for later learning."  After taking a course on visual literacy and visual culture, I have learned that this comparison of art to text is absolutely true.  Why should art be held to a higher, more rigorous standard than a typical text?  Why is it not ok to look at an image and wonder or imagine?

I absolutely side with Philip Yenawine here.  The student who imagined aliens instead of gas masks was not damaging other students or making a mistake.  He/she was simply using their experiences and prior knowledge to bring themselves into the image.  What I love about art is that it is open to interpretation.  Each viewer who looks at a work brings their own background and experiences to the table when looking at a piece of art.  Without a little room to move for interpretation, art becomes fixed and black and white, like a math problem, which couldn't be more opposite of what art is really all about.

Blog Topic 6

This week, my students did a VTS of the following George Tooker painting:

My students have VTSed this artist twice now, and both times they have seemed really excited about the work.  Almost all students raised their hand at one point, and they were all really respectful of one another.  Some things they noticed about the image were:

• a clear divide in classes (rich vs. poor) due to clothing and items characters held
• a theme of pain, suffering, waiting, and imprisonment
• repetition within the painting (boxes, groups of people)
• a neutral color palette

My students seem to surprise me every week.  Sometimes their artmaking can really lack in critical thinking, and when the class participates in these discussions, I feel so impressed.  They have such great vocabularies about art and seem to notice many deep details in the work.  I think that my students artmaking abilities will really benefit from out VTS discussions because it gives them an opportunity to see how other artists create conceptual art.

Overall, the VTS felt really good to me.  I don't seem to be having any issues using the prescribed lines much at all.  My students seem to be getting used to having these discussions. as I have noticed that they are providing evidence for what they see without me having to ask them.  While I know this is inherently good, it sometimes throws off my balance during the discussion because it makes me really think about what I need to say next.

In the future, I really want to work on transitioning more smoothly.  A few of my students shouted out during the discussion without being called on, and I need to be able to better handle speaking to two students at once.  It is really surprising me how much I am enjoying this class and I really hope that it continues to be beneficial to my kiddos.

Blog Topic 5

Identifying a student VTS might help or challenge is a tough question in my situation.  Most of my students are operating at or above grade level, and most of them have high grade point averages.  However, a student who I believe VTS might help is Brad.  Brad is a really, really talented artist in my advanced art class.  He shows so much skill in technicality, but often lacks meaning in his artwork.  He doesn't participate much, if at all, in VTS discussions during class.  While I do think he is the "sit back and take it all in" type of person, I think he could greatly benefit from being involved in our VTS classroom discussions.  Getting Brad to participate in VTS could help him to see that artists create art to tell stories and share meaningful experiences, which he struggles with in his own work.  In the future, I think that I could ask all students to make at least one or two comments about the work we view during VTS so that all students participate without pointing him out.  Overall, my VTS discussions have gone really well so far and I can't wait to see where they go next.

Blog Topic 4

After a bit of a rough start with the written portion last week, I was really happy and intrigued with my results this week.  I did a VTS using the following image:

The main aspects of this image that my students noticed were:

• This is some type of dwelling, but it looks really bare
• A relationship between the woman and child
• The woman's clothes seem really nice, may elude to wealth
• The letter look really old and may have a link to the woman's past
• The woman's grip on the box in her lap and the woman's gaze

Overall, I was so super proud of my kids.  They picked out themes of time, place, and culture in this image, which I definitely was not expecting.  It was interesting to see how students would play off of one another's thoughts, creating theories of their own about this woman's story (there were lots of ideas about the letters being family heirlooms or that maybe someone she knew had been away at war).  The VTS definitely employed a sense of community during the discussion in that sense.  The only real issue I experienced was that when my kids got excited, they tended to talk out of turn, interrupting before I got a chance to paraphrase.  I think I can better avoid that next time by making sure the group understands my expectations before we start.  

I felt completely comfortable leading the discussion, and I noticed that I had a lot of patience, even when kids spoke without giving me a chance to.  Next time, I will absolutely take more time to develop expectations for a VTS discussion.

At the end, I had two students stay after class (at the end of the school day!!) to tell me how much they enjoyed the discussion.  They mentioned that they liked to hear other's stories and felt it was enjoyable to search for more in the artwork.  One student mentioned that he liked my inclusion of vocabulary words when I paraphrased their remarks.  I was really proud to hear that.  It was a fun discussion and I am really looking forward to the next one.  

Blog Topic 3

In all honesty, I was really surprised by my Pre-VTS assessments.  As I have mentioned earlier, I am moving through this class with my Advanced Art class.  I am not sure if the title of the class or my prior knowledge of my students gave me high expectations, but this exercise really made me realize that I believe my students to be more advanced viewers and artists than they really are.  I felt a bit disappointed, because, really, many of my students blew through the exercise, writing only a few sentences about what they saw (and I have done VTS with some of them before).  I would say my students are probably somewhere in between stage 2 and 3 viewers, by wanting to expand on ideas and imagery, but not have as much background in Art History and technique as a historian would.  Before I sound too negative here, there were around three students who did an exceptional job, picking up things that I hadn't noticed in the given image.  So it may be that I really have a range of viewing skills in my classroom.

Peer VTS

I completed my peer VTS last week, and overall, it went great.  Most of the adults felt pretty comfortable, but the other art teacher mentioned that she felt a lot of pressure about looking at the work.  The image I chose was "Dad's Coming" by Winslow Homer.  Everyone participated, and most people seemed interested, though there were a few people who joked around about not having an art background.  The general responses I got afterward were:

• VTS helped the narrative/story come together for the participants
• VTS forces you to continue to look for more, even if you think you have noticed everything
• helped to think critically about the image 
• encouraged you to revisit objects or things in the image you already looked at

Overall, the experience went really well and I even had one group member ask if I could help her do this with her students.