I have methods which I already use to integrate the arts, especially music and the visual arts, into the content areas, but I was hoping to find some research to support what I do. A couple examples of how I use the unique "symbolic systems" of visual art and music to offer pathways to different learning styles in language arts are:
-To motivate my kids to journal I use cuts of my original songs (especially ones that have been home-recorded onto "all impressing" CDs) and run a "SMASH or TRASH!" technique. The kids are told to judge the song as either a "smash" hit or a piece of "trash", and then justify their verdict in writing. The sometimes tedious task of getting them to journal is easier I have found when they are writing about my songs, and the ever harder job of getting them to share their journaling with the rest of the class is also much easier when they have the chance to criticize me in front of everyone!
-To assist in developing the skill of writing descriptive sentences I use the visual arts to improve pre-writing tasks such as brainstorming. The kids will respond to photographic or original artwork by listing in writing
the details they observe in the piece. I will also use drawings by the students as options in journaling responses to readings. In a Poetry Project we are currently doing the kids were each assigned a line from Gwendolyn Brooks's "We Real Cool". On the first day we used the poem in the shared reading part of our Reading Writing Workshop. Rather than doing a written journal response to the piece after we read it and discussed it, the kids were each assigned a line and had to draw a picture to explain what the line meant to them. The next day they "acted out" their line and everyone drew another picture, this one to illustrate the final line of the poem, "We die soon.". The pictures with each corresponding drawing and a collage made from the last line's interpretations, made a wonderful bulletin board as well as a very good, multi-sensory "spring board" into my lessons on the "Imagery in Poetry" part of the unit. This use of artwork, especially allowing the students to respond in art forms, seems to help in the development of their descriptive writing skills. The use of drawing as a task in pre-writing and revision seems to improve the quality of the writing process.
All this kind of stuff I do feels right, and appears to me to be effective, but as I wrote earlier, I would like to be able to support these approaches with some research. Post a reference if you uncover anything reputable!
|
