Art + Literacy

I went to a workshop this morning on Art and Literacy integration. It focused on the emphasizing the elements and principles of Design using painting and poetry. Even through out instructor was at the High School level, there were some parts of the project that could be used at the Elementary level.

Students would create an origami or an accordian style book out of student designed watercolor paper. Students would, then, write on the pages, the elements and principles of design as well as a descriptive poem. Student also made pinwheels for the "Pinwheels for Peace" project incorporating the elements and principles. Some of the books, designed, were more sculptural in their design using intricate cut outs that "popped out" when opened, making for a beautiful art piece.

Other projects that our instructor told us about was having students create "new" inventions that reflected a certain principle of design. They worked in groups to go through elaborate planning and advertising of their new invention from the imagination" stage all the way through to the "advertising" stage. Of course, this would take more time than I have with the students, but it was amazing how many academic disciplines were involved from start to finish. The examples that she showed were really quite creative. Maybe we can do some cooporative work and bring this down to our students creative level

Written by: Jen Snead