Presentation

Link to my VTS presentation prezi

VTS Unit Plan

VTS UNIT PLANNING GUIDE

Compiled by Mary Franco

LTC 8900-60  Visual Thinking Strategies II

Teachers Name: Derrick Gwinner

Course Title: Boy Writers Club (Group C)

Age/Grade Level of Students: 4^th and 5^th grade

"As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

DEFINE THE BIG IDEA at the center of the Instructional Unit.

Bodacious Beasts! – An exploration of all things beastly—be it animal or humanoid—so long as it’s imaginative!

STATE THE RATIONALE for addressing this BIG IDEA  (Why is it appropriate for your students?)

Our group is composed entirely of boys, so we decided to focus on time-honored boy themes of adventure and fantasy.  After exploring the exploits and codes of samurai and knights, we caped off the year with the classic hero’s nemesis: the beast!  Hercules had Cerberus and the Hydra.  Odysseus had Scylla and the Cyclops.  Knights had dragons.  Max had his Wild Things.  And as Don Quixote knew: if there are no beasts on your path to heroism, then you must look within and bring out your own!

DEFINE KEY CONCEPTS to be addressed.

*Beasts come in many different shapes and manors.

*Beasts are not human but may have human qualities.

*Beasts often represent our deepest fears and may be expressed as horrific combinations of those fears.

*Beasts are often thought of as stronger than humans or as possessing qualities and powers that surpass those of humans.

*Beasts are usually thought to be threatening and destructive but are not necessarily so.

*Beasts have been a part of our stories and imaginations for a very long time.

 

DEFINE ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS to be explored.

-What makes a beast?

-How do beasts behave?

-Where do beasts come from?

-Are all beasts bad guys?

-Do beasts have families or friends?

-How might beasts help us use our imaginations?

-How do a beast’s physical characteristics impact its beastly powers?

-What might beasts be able to tell us about ourselves?

LIST OBJECTIVES that will guide unit instruction.

-Students will look closely at a variety of works that depict beasts and participate in teacher-facilitated discussion of these works (VTS format).

-Students will imagine and create their own beasts in two-dimensional (drawn) and three-dimensional (ceramic) formats.

-Students will describe their beasts in writing and create written narratives focused on the exploits of their beasts.

-Students will photograph their three-dimensional beasts and digitally alter the photographs to be included in a film.

-Students will provide voiceover narration for a film, describing the actions of their beast in battle.

LIST ALL OTHER CURRICULUM GOALS &/OR OBJECTIVES to be addressed.

-Students will invest the beasts that they create with meaning and come to see them as unique, coherent, and continuous identities with strengths and stories of their own.

CROSS-CURRICULUAR CONNECTIONS

Language Arts: The basis of our work with the Boy Writers is an integration of the visual arts with writing activities.  We use study of visual works (VTS) to scaffold vocabulary development and the visual works that the boys create often serve as pre-writing activities, allowing the boys to brainstorm visually and providing a subject for their creative writing prompts.

LIST VTS IMAGES w/ PHOTOS that you will use in this unit chronologically in the table below.

Under “RATIONALE,” briefly note why you selected the image, how it will be used, and how it relates to the other images in the sequence (such as increasing complexity, elaboration of a theme, scaffolding of more complex concepts, transition to a key concept, etc.)

IMAGE          TITLE of the work               ARTIST / CULTURE              RATIONALE

Promo Illustration for The Dragon of Cripple Creek

Troy Howell

This was actually for the final activity of our Knights unit, but it served as a transition to the Bodacious Beasts unit, so I wanted to include it here.  Our final Knight activity had the boys imagining that their knight or squire character has "gone rogue" (PING Emerson) and wound up the subject of a wanted poster.  This image contained a unique bridge between wanted posters (generally more of a late-19th century thing) and knighthood because it also features a dragon--which, conveniently enough, is also a beast!  Another goal being considered in selecting this image was that the boys had taken to listing observations rather than developing a narrative when VTSing some of the more complex images.  So, I'd hoped that giving them a little less detail to notice might prod them into more story-based observations.

Basilisk

Unknown

Dustin found this image.  I liked it a lot, so I used it with my group as well.  This served as the introduction to our exquisite corpse monster creation activity.  This image worked well to introduce the notion of beasts as multifaceted compositions where familiar and unfamiliar elements might blend and blur.  The boys were able to pick out recognizable elements of the beast that they agreed upon (the rooster head/feet) but they were also able to debate some of the more ambiguous aspects (dragon or snake tail?).  Also, the inclusion of a setting provided a notion of scale and context and some of the boys explored these details in their observations.

Joan Miro

Harlequin's Carnival

This was used for day two of our exquisite corpse beast designing activity.  I'd initially thought of using an actual exquisite corpse drawing for our VTS this day, but most exquisite corpses consist of a figure without any contextual information/story to draw on, so I didn't think we'd get a very rich discussion from that.  I settled on Joan Miro because his characters have a strong hybrid quality, much like the Basilisk that we'd used the week before.  This particular painting includes a lot of different hybrid figures interacting within an environment and I'd hoped that the energy/movement of the figures would lead to a discussion about what narrative might be represented.  Also, having spent the past couple of weeks with fringe/visual culture works, I wanted to spend some time with something more canonical. 

Gargoyles, Dijon Cathedral, France

Photo by Jnewcomb

This image began our journey into the third dimension.  I chose this image with the hope that the boys would be somewhat familiar with the notion of gargoyles affixed to cathedrals, which would resolve the problem of needing to determine the original function/context of the sculpture.  On the other hand, I was hoping that the variety of figure types would surprise the boys and lead to speculation about their hybrid/beastly characteristics, how they related, and what their various poses might indicate.  I also felt that gargoyle figures would serve as a good model as the boys began to build with clay because they are squat and sturdy.  Finally, this image was taken by a bicycle tourist, which is a detail that I shared with the boys as a way of  also telling them a little more about myself and my own bicycle travels (I feel like students should get periodic reminders that their teachers are real people with unique and varied interests--it's a different kind of modeling).

Untitled (Chicago Picasso)

Pablo Picasso

This image began day two of our clay building activity.  The writing activity for this day had the boys creating a new story in which their beasts are re-imagined as heroes.  The people of Chicago added an Olympic medal and laurel wreath to their iconic statue as part of their campaign to host the 2016 Olympics, thus giving the image a heroic narrative spin which I'd hoped would help launch the boys on their writings.  Also again, I was hoping to provide the boys with a good model of simplified, sturdy sculptural building.

Baluba III

Jean Tinguely

This was our final image.  I chose it because it had a whimsical, beastly quality (something of resemblance to our initial Basilisk) and because I'd enjoyed working with the boys to tease out the ambiguities of form and identity in the Chicago Picasso and hoped that this would stimulate a similar discussion.  In both images, there is enough specificity in the individual components to speak clearly about the particulars but also a level of abstraction in the form as a whole to allow for multiple interpretations and conjecture.  Ultimately, with these last three sculptural images, I found that explorations of identity (what is it? what might it be?) were a more viable discussion point than issues of narrative/story (what's happening?).

VTS IMAGE RATIONALE  (How do these images enhance student understanding of the BIG IDEA?)

The images present a wide variety of beasts from different times and places, with the particulars of each image matched to the goals of that particular day's lesson.  At the same time, the sequence of images increases in complexity by way of abstraction.  Partly, this was necessitated by the move to sculpture, but overly prosaic sculptural pieces were deliberately avoided in favor of more unusual works.  Some of these choices run counter to the recommendations for VTS image selection (prominence of 3d work; prominence of abstraction; downplay of narrative) but were suggested by our distinct curricular goals and by experience with our particular group of viewers.

STUDIO / ARTMAKING activity or activities (List/Describe in order. Explain how this media exploration enhances student understanding of the BIG IDEA. )

Wanted Posters:  Photography and digital alteration.  Asks students to transition from previous heroic modes to roguish/beastly mode.  Students take the heroic identities that they've developed and pose them as outsiders.

Exquisite Corpse Beasts:  Students draw a beast in two halves (two separate sheets of paper that may be joined) and potentially trade halves with a classmate.  This format highlights the hybridity/multifaceted nature of beasts and encourages imagination and experimentation.  Students also write a description of--or proclamation from--their beasts and engage in beast battles in which the individual characteristics of their beasts are tested.

Clay Beasts:  Students build beasts from clay.  Students also write a story that turns their beast into a well-loved hero.

Beast Battle Videos:  Students engage their beasts in one last battle and record the turn-by-turn results.  Students then take pictures of their clay beasts to accompany each of these turns and digitally alter the photos to represent the action described.  Altered photos are compiled in a video for which the students provide narration of the battle.

LESSON SEQUENCE (Outline each lesson in the order that it will be taught to provide a scaffolded structure where learning unfolds. Describe how VTS will be infused into various aspects of the lesson)

I.

1. VTS 'Promo Illustration for The Dragon of Cripple Creek' 
2. Students take villainous self-portraits with iPad
3. Students compile portraits on prepared background and add text and any desired illustrations using Pic Collage app

II. 

1. VTS 'Basilisk' (day 1) and 'Harlequin's Carnival' (day 2)
2. Students draw two halves of beast (on separate sheets of paper pre-marked on one side at third and fifth inch with short lines to begin the figures)
3. Students have option of trading halves
4. Students write description or proclamation of beast
5. Students battle beasts (if done early)

 III.

1. VTS 'Gargoyles and Figures, Dijon Cathedral, France' (day 1), 'Untitled (Chicago Picasso)' (day 2), and 'Baluba III' (day 3)
2. Students build clay beasts.
3. Students write story in which beast becomes the hero

IV.

1. Students assign points from a total of 15 to one of three categories: 'Melee', 'Magic', and 'Sneak'
2. Students pair up and battle beasts, one category at a time, and record the results
3. Students take pictures of clay beasts from a variety of angles (using iPad) and choose pictures to alter for battle narrative
4. Students digitally alter pictures using Pic Collage app on iPad
5. Teacher compiles altered pictures into battle video
6. Students provide spoken narrative to battle video (recorded and added to audio track of video by teacher)

FORMATIVE & SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES with Evaluation Criteria

Due to the low teacher-student ratio in the Boy Writers Club, formative assessments are ongoing, with teachers providing continuous feedback on student work.  Student work is checked for completion and detail and students are encouraged to add to their work based on individual learning differences.  Also, the large number of teachers allows for regular teacher-to-teacher discussion and reflection about the day's (and individual students') successes and challenges.  Further, VTS discussions are recorded and consulted later to evaluate the success of these discussions.

UNIT EVALUATION & ASSESSMENT

·         Successes-  Over the year, the boys observations during VTS became richer and more assured.  The boys also came to treat the VTS session as more of a dialogue in which they agreed, disagreed, added to, and diverted from one another's comments, rather than as a disparate set of observations. 

·         Disappointments- The year ended too quickly!  We didn't get to the Lesson IV because we ran out of time and that was doubly disappointing because I think it would have ended the year on a more memorable note.  Instead, the end felt a little abrupt.  Also, we had technical difficulties and the boys did not end up having as much control of the end product on their Wanted Posters as I'd initially envisioned.  I'd hoped that the process of taking their own pictures and altering the color would be an integral part of the experience and that it all would have been handled neatly on the iPads but we had to improvise.

·         Revisions- If I had to do it again, I think I might change the Harlequin's Carnival and Gargoyles images.  In the case of Harlequin's Carnival, I think the instinct to use Joan Miro was good but I have a nagging feeling that there was just too much going on in that particular image and I feel like the boys' observations were stunted a bit by the barrage of visual information--too many variable to make sense of.  Meanwhile, the Gargoyles image had looked great on my iPad but when I put it up on the SmartBoard, I felt like it became a little too fuzzy.

            

Week 2(ish) Response

Getting deeper into the VTS theoretical and research articles has been kind of an uneasy process.  On the one hand, I enjoy the VTS process and have spent over a year with it now.  I’ve evolved a tentative understanding of it and an intuitive feel for its inner workings as a teaching tool.  On the other hand, my baseline approach to academic articles—particularly those that attempt to explain the theoretical underpinnings of practice and research demonstrating the success of said practices—tends to be deep, stubborn skepticism.

So, while the set of articles read for week 1’s reflection scratched an itch for a little additional context and an opportunity to reflect on my VTS practice, with week 2, the honeymoon ended.  I came away with way, way more questions than insights and I’m not even sure where to begin, so I think I’ll just paste the unadorned list in:

Reading  1) Yenawine: can’t shake my skepticism about stage theories

Reading 2) Housen: what kinds of aesthetic teaching did the other school receive, if any?

a. possibly the effect being observed is that subjects are getting better at talking/the interview process?

b. why aren't half-stages whole stages?

c. very mixed ending--critical thinking vs critical thinking about art...

Reading 3) Eye: p.4 contrast with my art (history) experience

a. Domains and Second Level Refinements is good

b. p.7 "validity is supported by the fact that we arrive at the same stage score through two distinct analytic methods", but I can only find a description of one (the ADI and its subsequent coding process)

c. p.8 "as emotions go underground..." wonder if she's reading a bit too much into the viewer's emotions/though processes

d. p.9 stage theory FALLS APART*************, again with reference to my own art (history) history AND p.13 statement about adult viewers stuck at Stage II is evidence that the later stages DO NOT fit in a stage theory framework

***I’m wondering about early reading experiences: picture decoding and story telling

e. p.15 "Discussions last for 45 minutes to one hour."!?!?!?

+++And again on p 18: "We have numerous instances of children as young as second graders talking about one slide for as long as one hour."

f. what happens in less controlled settings when you have stage 3's mixed with stage 1's and 2's?  Does the stage 3 viewer tend to shut down contributions from the earlier stage viewers?

g. p 17 remark (unless it relates) Knowledge is inherently cumulative and VTS seems to acknowledge this with one hand (prodding viewers toward a dawning awareness of connections between different works, facilitating a shift to metacognitive thought processes about artist intentionality/cultural relativity) while insisting on a viewership unsullied by these connections with the other (core questions targeted toward the theoretical early stage viewers, unconcerned with the continuing needs of later viewers or the interactions between the two)

h. p 21 findings about people seldom being above stage II seem like no-brainers, unless you come from a museum-going family or take an interest in art history, you will not get above this stage no matter how much art you look at

i. p 22 more questions, though some hint of validity in suggestion that "Children who have been taught a variety of "expert-derived facts or information" seldom display any of this information in their unstructured samples of aesthetic thinking (ADIs)

&&&

Do controls have a comparable experience with images and conversation but without the specific question set????!!!!

j. p 24, the "modeling" contradiction – last week’s readings stressed significance of modeling in VTS, but here the role of modeling in VTS aesthetic learning process is dismissed

-----Where's the data about stages 3 thru 5?  Where does VTS fit into these stages?  How does VTS facilitate the transition from stage 2 to 3??!?!  If most adults are at stage 2, where's the evidence that VTS effectively moves them past it?

I’m not going to pursue any of these questions in much depth right now because my hope is that later readings will address some of these issues.  Suffice it to say that a major component of my current critical stance is that my own experience as a student of art does not follow the pattern put forth by VTS stage theory.  I didn’t take a serious interest in the visual arts until my second year as an undergraduate, when I took my first art history course.  I was hooked, immediately, but my burgeoning aesthetic sensibility was very much wrapped up in the facts, figures and context provided by my professors.  It’s possible that I’d already worked my way through the earlier stages in one way or another (maybe it transferred from my interests in literature and music?), but the evidence presented in the readings this week hasn’t persuaded me to accept the VTS stage theory just yet.  That doesn’t discount the validity of the VTS question set as a useful tool for facilitating discussions, particularly among younger views, but so far there’s a serious disconnect in these articles between stages two and three and I’m not convinced that the attitudes toward art that are expressed by the descriptions of stages three through five have to be viewed as sequential or even separate from the attitudes expressed by stages one and two.

Weekly, I watch preschoolers (ages 3-5) construct elaborate understandings of picture books and teaching aids that I feel relatively certain reach the second stage of VTS stage theory.  So, for students that achieve that kind of progress at such a young age, does VTS wash its hands of them?  Where does the prompt to stage three and beyond come from?  It seems more likely to me that the types of responses being classified as stages by VTS theory are context specific, relying on the subject’s familiarity with the type of observed/source material, the specific material being observed, and past experiences/comfort-level discussing that material. 

I’m also extremely interested to know if any of the control groups in the studies described received an alternative aesthetic learning experience.  Additional info about this would provide perspective on whether aesthetic experience is being shaped by the specific VTS practices.  A related question would be to determine whether communication abilities are being developed more significantly by one approach or the other and whether this can be isolated from developments in aesthetic perception.

In any case, I’m a newbie here, so please suffer my inquiries/ignorance…  Here’s what I gained from my first self-assessment:

1.       What did you learn about your current VTS skills from self-assessing your most recent VTS video?

I was a little surprised to see how closely I stick to the VTS script.  I suppose that the sense of juggling that occurs in the course of facilitating the conversation led me to believe that I was occasionally getting derailed but it looks like I only missed one use of question 3.

2.       What do you think you are doing well? (What did you see that makes you say that?)

 

I seem to have the sequence of questions, gestures, and paraphrase(ish) facilitation down pretty well.  I also appear to keep a steady affect, responding consistently with an “okay” and matter-of-factly summarizing and drawing connections as the conversation progresses.  I suppose the biggest impact these strengths have is in keeping our conversation focused which allows each of the boys to share their observations at least once and, in some cases, two or three times.

3.       What do you think you need to work on? (What did you see that makes you say that?)

I think I need to strive to enrich my paraphrase vocabulary.  It’s a little hard to hear the boys in the video, but I think that a lot of the time, I’m simply repeating their observations and only cursorily offering some alternative vocabulary/phrasing when there’s an opportunity to sum up or draw connections between observations.  If I were able to bind their individual observations together a little better, it might eliminate some of the side conversation that began to happen in the course of the VTS.

4.       What behaviors/skills will you focus on developing and/or improving during the semester?

I think I also realized that I need to listen to distinguish a little more carefully between observations that are purely descriptive (i.e. the sky is blue) and observations that are disputable (dragon-ram) and which might therefore warrant the use of question 2.  My hope is that with this reflective practice (watching videos of my VTS sessions) as my guide, I’ll be able to slow things down in my VTS facilitation just a bit.  I hope to still offer a focused exploration of each image and provide ample opportunity for the boys to respond but to introduce a little more space for reflection in the conversation, which will hopefully give the boys an even richer viewing practice.

Playing catch-up: initial reflections from week 1 assigned readings

There was a lot to chew on in this foundational set of readings. I'll just stick to the surprises/insights for this post:

1) VTS is a social learning experience -- I was particularly taken by the use of the term "group mind" in the two Yenawine articles. The notion of collective creativity and knowledge creation has been very much on my radar lately (largely thanks to this article), so while I'd already considered VTS within the construct of peer tutoring. I think I had mostly thought of this as a peripheral benefit of the VTS model, so it was enlightening to see it foregrounded in these readings. It also brought to mind the Barrett articles that we read for LTC8740 and his emphasis on art interpretation as both a personal and communal endeavor.

 2) Within that social learning framework, I have some very clear responsibilities as facilitator that I need to work on honing -- I need to keep in mind that I am modeling the notion that "listening to and trying to understand others is important" (VTS manual, p 6). I've not reviewed my videos yet, but I suspect that I rush things too much in my eagerness to acknowledge and move to the next comment. I need to model what it looks like to take time and carefully consider each participant's input and I need to review this specific component of our activity before beginning the discussion by explaining that we are here to "build understandings together" (p 24).

 3) I need to encourage this type of deliberation from the get-go -- I suspect that I get in a rush because I'm eager to respond to the students' eagerness to share their observations. Lately, we've begun the session with the image already on the board and the students usually have their hands raised before I even begin to remind them of the VTS expectations. I suspect that if we're more careful about not showing the first image until after the preparatory conversation, the students will be more likely to more closely attend to that discussion. This is particularly important because I want to encourage the boys to adhere more closely to the "building understandings" notion as opposed to the tendency to list observations that don't lend themselves well to the "what do you see that makes you say that" question. I believe that all of the boys have demonstrated themselves capable of creating understandings but I think they may get in a hurry to contribute and default on these lists as a result. It will be tricky to encourage progress in this regard because the first question is deliberately engineered to be open enough to allow for all types of response and I don't want to take away any tools from the toolbox, but I do want to reorient our understanding of what the VTS session entails.

4)VTS and Big Ideas, a perfect pair -- Finally, it was interesting reviewing the the Walker text through the lens of VTS because I'd never realized how closely their goals are aligned. Each attempts to scaffold students as they build a knowledge base on which to create meaning. Each allows plenty of wiggle room for curriculum to be tailored to the students abilities and interests. Each moves students further along a path from personal meaning making to a broader application and understanding of meaning as a matter of multiple salient perspectives.

Also, I'd like to reiterate that I've not reviewed my VTS videos yet, so it's entirely possible that I've been overly critical about what I think can or should be improved upon. These were just my gut reactions as I read these texts and reflect the extent to which I felt my own efforts were not yet fully formed. I'm eager to see what other impressions arise as I review the video record.