Text interventions – A CLIL work in progress

Scrabble is perhaps the world’s best known language based game. The puzzling out of word options within limited possibilities forces us to think hard and squeeze out the longest and highest scoring configurations.   In essence the same could be said for a small language and image assignment that I was experimenting with last week.

The idea ordinates from a piece of street art by the British artist known as Banksy.

The image doesn’t need a great deal of explanation. An altered text, an image is added and a social point is made……in this case, our city parks are being concreted over to provide city car parking. Simple and to the point, something that my pupils have no problem in ‘getting’. But coming up with an idea of their own is a whole different kettle of fish. Could my third year pupils (aged 14-15) face up to the challenge?

I was asked to provide a 90 minute language orientated workshop for a group, an ideal opportunity to try the idea out and see if they could.

Technically we were able to simultaneously use the project for a little digital orientation using iPads to do the necessary image manipulation (we used Brushes Redux for those interested) however in principle a desktop or just pencil and paper could be used.

I asked the pupils to go looking for warning signs, road and traffic direction boards, text on the roads, walls or anywhere else where text could be found. Like the Banksy example the challenge was then to remove letters to change the direction of the meaning of the text in a humourous, ironic, serious or simply crazy and unexpected way.

Like my Scrabble example the pupil is left trying to manipulate and construct within the limited options available. Also like the Banksy example a little extra imagery could also be added or the context behind the text altered.

An hour and a half later I am left with a series of examples. Some pupils have picked the idea up and developed some interesting angles. In truth we were perhaps a little short of time. Surprising, inspired ideas don’t always come so quickly. With a little more time I would also like to push the images that have been added a bit further, but there is certainly potential here to develop the idea into something a little more expansive.

Language and creativity 3 – content and language integrated learning idea (CLIL)

It is perhaps a little overdue, but I’ve been planning for a while to post a little about the results from the classroom of the obliteration poetry project that I ran with my third years (fifteen year olds) at the end of the last school year. I’ve posted twice before about the preparation, ideas and influences behind the project.

Creative with language 1

Creative with language 2

Now though I have the results and some thoughts about how the project was received and engaged with by pupils.

Overall I feel that the assignment as a whole worked well. The pupils understood the challenge of the language part of the assignment clearly and enjoyed the language puzzle aspect of it as they battled with the options that the text offered. In many pupils there seemed to be a determination to squeeze everything possible out of the available words. Equally though others found it a frustrating business when they had settled on a direction for a given sentence only to discover that they just couldn’t quite get there due to the absence of sometimes the smallest of linking words. The more creative linguists saw this though as a challenge to discover a new direction to take the new narrative in.

As and when I repeat the assignment I think I will offer maybe a little more time and support in getting the grammar and logic of the constructed sentences as sharp and correct as they can possibly be. This language component and the challenge to try and ensure that the text is both correct and interesting to read is a crucial part and requires considerable focus and time to perfect.

Once the text is in order I made a number of requirements for the design element:

• The text must be clear and easy to read, the design of the page must lead you clearly and easily across the page finding the chosen words quickly and in the correct order.
• There should be a number of figurative elements that relate to the newly created narrative/poem/story line. These should be bold and easily visible amongst the other aspects of the page.
• The page should be filled with imagery, patterns and colour that show strong attention for the overall design of the page as a whole.

This design part of the assignment certainly provided the pupils with considerable engagement and it was clear to see that approaches and techniques were being used, reused and modified around the class. Some pupils were very successful and using often quite abstract design concepts in order to pull the separate figurative element together in order to create an overall engaging design. Others struggled to connect pictorial elements that resulted from the text construction. Often it would seem that weaknesses in the language partly fed weaknesses in the design work, further reason to give the text part a little more focus on a future occasion.

Overall though I see no reason at not to peruse and develop the assignment further, any improvements being more a question of fine tuning rather than a total rebuild. I would also encourage non-visual arts teachers to have a go, at the very least at the textual part of the assignment. It is fascinating to watch and support pupils in the puzzling that goes on.

The examples posted here make use of the opening chapters of Wuthering Heights as their starting point.

Grabbing the attention…..and making a point

It is great to immediately grab the attention of your pupils at the start of a new year, to make them sit up, have a memorable first lesson experience and, if possible, deal with an important content related issue.

I have something of a favourite way of doing this with my third year classes (aged 15) at the start of the school year. The point that I want to make, apart from perhaps shaking them out of their summer holiday slumber, is that art doesn’t necessarily have to be beautiful or skillfully made. It can also be simply about an idea, a point that the creator is trying to make, be that incredibly serious, humouress or thought provoking.

The way I do this is you ask the pupils to set up a small still life of objects from their school bag or pencil case. We talk a little about what a still life is and how they should approach making a pencil drawing of their own arrangement. I subsequently then give them half an hour to make the best possible drawing they can produce. I then ask them to sign their own drawing in the bottom right corner.

All very regular art lesson stuff up until now, but then comes the twist. I ask the pupils to switch drawings with the person sitting next to them. I think initially I think they expect to carry on drawing on someone else’s picture. But instead I ask them first you rub out their friend’s name and replace it with their own name! Some are very happy to do this, others less so, but I insist!

But then comes the moment that causes the most uproar in the class. “Rub the whole drawing out , remove as much of it as you possibly can”, is the following instruction. The whole room bursts into discussion, laughter, one or two sometimes initially refuse, but in the end, after some frantic work with a rubber the drawings are removed.

We then compare the new versions on the drawing and talk about points such as:

• What the difference is between the ‘drawing’ and a brand new and clean piece of paper
• What the ‘drawing’ actually records….it is after all a sort of document of the first half of our lesson
• The importance or not of beauty in art
• The value or such a rubbed out drawing

Those who know their art history well will perhaps have guessed where this is going. I then recount the connection of what they have just done with the incident from 1953 when Robert Rauschenberg rubbed out one of Willem de Kooning’s valuable drawings in order to create his own new artwork entitled Erased de Kooning drawing.

Use the link below for a bit more historical detail:

Erased de Kooning drawing

The pupils are old enough to appreciate the element of humour in the work, but I think with a little explanation they are also able to understand that here is an artwork that has little to do with creating an aesthetic object. It is about the idea, the performance or an action and the curious way that the artwork has become a document of that action. It poses a question to these fifteen year olds about what can be considered art.

All in all it’s a great lesson to start the year with. You get engaged pupils, you get drawing activity, you a little art history, you get a serious ‘what is art’ issue into the discussion and….you get laughter and a lesson that they’ll talk about when they get home.

 

In at the deep end…

Today is my first day back at school after the summer break and I’m closer than ever before to simply starting with my new bilingual first year classes in English, with none of the pupils’ native Dutch thrown in to make it easier for them. I describe them as a ‘bilingual classes’ but they aren’t really, or at least not yet. They are just starting down the language learning road. Virtually all have a smattering of English already, picked up from tv, films, music and the Internet. Normally the first weeks of the school year are for me and my first year pupils, sessions of constant switching between English and Dutch. So what has brought me to this point where I think I should just start in English and not offer a Dutch language back-up or safety net?

For the last three years I’ve been doing a workshop at a nearby school (where I don’t normally teach) that also has a bilingual stream. I am hired in for an intensive day of language and art activities that results in a presentation for parents.

This workshop is also done with first year pupils (aged 12), just beginning their bilingual education. They are actually beginning with a lot of new things at once, it’s a big week. A new school, many new friends, new teachers, a new experience of subjects being taught as separate hours in a timetable and…….a new language of instruction. Could we make it a more intimidating and difficult step for a twelve year old I sometimes wonder.

For the pupils I worked with earlier in the week it was the start of just the second week at their new school, and the second week of wrestling with their new language of communication. It’s also been a week and one day of a huge number of new impressions and challenges for them.

Today was just such an example, verbal word games, poetry, describing activities, group communication games, drawing and illustration, all in a day long project, lead by someone they had never seen before. In short, variation ruled the day as we bounced from one assignment to the next. Variation that is, mixed with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is one of my strong points, and today it was greeted by the enthusiasm of the pupils.

(Click here for examples of the sort of lesson assignments I make use of)

As a visitor to the school I can pretend for a day that I don’t speak any Dutch, and so force them to do all their communication in English. This way I can usurp the natural hierarchy of language in a typical Dutch school. They struggle to communicate with me in English because that is the only way it’s going to work. Rather like when you are on holiday abroad. Just like I was in France during the summer. I struggled to make use of my minimal knowledge of the French language when it was necessary. Yes it was easier of course to leave it to my wife to communicate with the locals with her much superior knowledge of the French language, but the question is, is my French ever going to improve that way?

I don’t think that I’m advocating that all my bilingual colleagues take such a hard line and aggressive language approach. I can imagine in some subject areas it could be more problematic if English was the only language used right from the beginning. But so much of my subject in the art room has the back-up of visual elements, demonstrations and images to support to aid understanding. My workshop earlier in the week was a demonstration of just how far children are able to come when thrown in at the language deep end. It’s all about listening hard, helping each other out when they don’t understand or miss a bit. But above all, and I posted about this a year ago (Learning through not understanding), keeping them stretching and reaching beyond the capabilities that they think they have.