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How Vincent van Gogh Can Help You Teach to the CCSS

Monday, September 17th, 2012

Henri Matisse in Kindergarten? Leonardo da Vinci in fifth grade? These names don’t often come to mind while thinking about instruction in English Language Arts. But they should.

In an age when literacy dominates public discourse on education, we must begin to think more broadly about what students read. Sure—the new Common Core State Standards emphasize close reading of high-quality, rigorous informational and literary texts, but they also support the “reading” and scrutiny of other forms of high-quality text. Works of art can, indeed should, be “read” in a very similar way to a poem by Shakespeare or a speech by Winston Churchill.

The CCSS present an exciting opportunity for elementary school teachers (who teach all subjects), grades 6-12 ELA teachers, and arts teachers to utilize the arts to teach the literacy skills outlined by the new standards. This should be done in addition to (not instead of) teaching the arts for their own sake. David Coleman, a lead writer of the CCSS in ELA has argued:

There is no such thing as doing the nuts and bolts of reading in Kindergarten through 5th grade without coherently developing knowledge in science, and history, and the arts…it is the deep foundation in rich knowledge and vocabulary depth that allows you to access more complex text.

Because it is not always obvious how to use a painting, film, play, or dance to meet the speaking, listening, and writing standards, Common Core has illustrated this in our Common Core Curriculum Maps in ELA. Below are examples of how a teacher might design two arts-centered ELA activities using works by Louis Comfort Tiffany, Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, and an unknown Chinese artist. These activities are written for second graders:

Art, Speaking and Listening

Artists often convey a sense of season in their depictions of flowers or trees. Ask students to study the Tiffany image, van Gogh’s Mulberry Tree, and the work titled Snow-Laden Plum Branches. Note that these works were created on three different continents at around the same time period. Ask students to discuss similarities and differences in these artists’ techniques for depicting the seasons. (SL.2.2)

Vincent van Gogh, Mulberry Tree

Art, Informative Writing

Select a work to study—for instance, you might choose the Georges Seurat for a clear depiction of a season. Ask the students to name the season that the artist has painted. Then have students write a two-or-three-sentence explanation identifying elements in the work that led them to their observation. (W.2.2)

Georges Seurat, Une Baignade, Asnieres

The first activity engages students in close “reading” of three art pieces. Their settings and compositions convey a distinct message about a season. By engaging students in a discussion about their similarities and differences, students are practicing the skill outlined in the second speaking and listening standard for second grade in the CCSS (SL.2.2): “Recount or describe key ideas or details for a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.”[1]

In a similar fashion, the second activity enables students to practice the skill described in standard W.2.2: “Write informative/explanatory texts in which they introduce a topic, use facts and definitions to develop points, and provide a concluding statement or section,”[2] by considering a painting by Seurat. Just imagine how wonderful it would be to hear a second grader liken a summer outing in the park to Seurat’s Une Baignade, Asnieres. While both activities address specific standards, they also build two other critically vital elements: students’ vocabulary and knowledge of important works of art. These assets contribute directly to students’ growth towards becoming skilled readers, writers, speakers, and thinkers.

These second grade activities are just two examples of the 179 arts activities included in Common Core’s ELA Maps that connect directly to the CCSS’ ELA standards. In fact, each of the 76 units that comprise our K-12 curriculum maps contain guidance for utilizing works of art, music, or film to teach to the new standards.

As students progress through the middle and high school grades, these arts activities demand increasingly complex analysis, thereby keeping pace with the standards while continuing to expand students’ knowledge of art history, and enriching their vocabulary. In an 8^th grade unit titled “Urban Settings in America: It Happened in the City,” an arts activity engages students in the study of various depictions of New York City:

Art, Speaking and Listening

Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and Piet Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie, which both depict New York City, were painted in the same year. Notice the dramatic difference in these artists’ styles. The difference goes beyond realism versus abstraction. Discuss the painters’ color palettes, the distance at which they placed the viewer, and the type of space in the work. Dwell on the extent to which each artist was focused on the people versus the place. Were they depicting the same time of day? (SL.8.1, SL.8.2, SL.8.4, SL.8.5)

Edward Hopper, Nighthawks

Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie

The activity addresses four of the six speaking and learning standards in eighth grade, by having students compare the works’ composition, style, and subject. One of the standards addressed, SL.8.2, enables students to “analyze the purpose of information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and evaluate the motives (e.g. social, commercial, political) behind its presentation.”[3]

Common Core’s ELA Maps demonstrate that the CCSS are an ideal vehicle for providing students with ample opportunities to “read” art. Gearing up and tuning students’ skills of visual observation will help to develop them into insightful and analytical readers, dexterous writers, and adept speakers, while also turning them into avid art lovers.

Lynne Munson

[1] Common Core State Standards Initiative, Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects: K-5, http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf, 23.

[2] Common Core State Standards Initiative, Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects: K-5, http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf, 19.

[3] Common Core State Standards Initiative, Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects: 6-12, http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf, 49.

Posted in Arts, Curriculum, English/Language Arts | 5 Comments »

From Shakespeare to Steinbeck, Literature is Losing Value in School

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

“Hamlet” or “ELA Test Prep 101”? Today’s teachers often have to decide whether they will teach works of literature or test prep materials. Increasingly, test prep is winning.

Claire Needell Hollander is a middle school reading enrichment teacher in New York City. Of Mice and Men, Sounder, The Red Pony, “A Raisin in the Sun,” Lord of the Flies, The Catcher in the Rye, “Romeo and Juliet” and “Macbeth” are just a few of the classic works of literature she has taught her classes in recent years. As a result of their exposure to these important books, Hollander’s students have experienced significant educational transformations. For example, she describes witnessing one student’s “historical perspective broadening” and “sense of his own country deepening” as he read “The Grapes of Wrath”. Additionally, Hollander writes that “year after year, ex-students have visited and told me how prepared they felt in their freshman year as a result of the classes.” And yet, Hollander has a big problem: in today’s data driven assessment culture, how do you measure this kind of impact?

In her opinion piece Teach the Books, Touch the Heart for the New York Times, Hollander describes her struggle to preserve the use of classic literature in her classes due to increasing pressure from administrators to prove their effectiveness on raising student test scores. She writes,

As student test scores have become the dominant means of evaluating schools, I have been asked to calculate my reading enrichment program’s impact on those scores. I found that some students made gains of over 100 points on the statewide English Language Arts test, while other students in the same group had flat or negative results. In other words, my students’ test scores did not reliably indicate that reading classic literature added value.

As a result of this finding, Hollander had to cut two of the three classes to which she teaches classic literature, replacing them instead with a “test-preparation tutorial program.” Now, only the highest-scoring students are allowed to keep taking her enrichment class and are the only ones in the school being exposed to high-quality texts with depth and substance. The rest of the students are given “watered-down news articles or biographies, bastardized novels, memos or brochures — passages chosen not for emotional punch but for textual complexity.”

This scenario is illustrative of one of the most outrageous and deeply unfortunate consequences of the data-driven accountability movement that has consumed our education system in the past decade. It has become increasingly common for mediocre, contrived test-prep materials to be seen as preferable to the works of Shakespeare and Steinbeck because such works are more efficient vehicles for teaching to state tests. This is not only absurd, it is unnecessary, and is likely doing more harm than good. At Common Core, we encourage all policymakers, educational leaders, and teachers to evade this regrettable outcome and fight to preserve literature’s purpose and place in schools.

Emily Dodd

Posted in Assessment, Curriculum, English/Language Arts, Teacher Perspective, What We're Reading | 2 Comments »

NAEP: Proof of Education Insanity

Friday, November 4th, 2011

I challenge anyone to think of a nation that works as hard as we do to find silver linings in its educational failures. On Tuesday morning NAEP reported that, in the course of two years, our nation’s 4th and 8th graders improved a single point (on a 500-point scale) in three of four reading and math assessments, and flatlined on the fourth. If you look at figures plotting NAEP scores over the last 30 years, any upward slope in the data is nearly undetectable to the naked eye. Analysts have spent the last few days slicing and dicing this data and making unconvincing arguments that some positive trends can be detected.

But the reality is that these results are appalling — particularly if you consider the massive federal funding increases, intense reform debates, and the incessant promises of new technologies that have dominated the education discussion for nearly two decades. We have spent a great deal and worked very hard but gotten unimpressive results. And this is in reading and math where, to the detriment of so many other core subjects, we’ve aimed nearly all of our firepower.

Einstein* defined “insanity” as “doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.” Well, my bet is that Einstein would have deemed NAEP data absolute proof of America’s educational insanity.

We’ve spent the last twenty years attempting to make what, on the surface, appears to be a diverse, creative, and wide-ranging series of reforms to public education. We’ve tried to bring market pressures to bear through charters and choice. We’ve attempted to set high standards and given high-stakes tests. We’ve experimented with shrinking school and class sizes. We’ve focused on “21st century skills” and used the latest technologies. We’ve collected and analyzed data on an unprecedented scale. We’ve experimented with a seemingly endless array of “strategies” for teaching reading and math and have tried to “differentiate” for every imaginable “type” of student. And we’ve paid dearly in tax dollars and in other ways for each of these “reforms.”

Interestingly, all of these reforms have one thing in common (aside from their failure to improve student performance except in isolated instances): None deals directly with the content of what we teach our students.

Maybe we need to give content a chance. What I mean by “content” is the actual knowledge that is imbedded in quality curricula. Knowledge of things like standard algorithms, poetry, America’s past, foreign languages, great painters, chemistry, our form of government, and much more. There are a few widely used curricula (e.g. International Baccalaureate, Latin schools curricula, Core Knowledge) that effectively incorporate much of this knowledge base. And performance data strongly suggests that these curricula work for ALL students.

So let’s draw on such successes and, sure, conduct more research, do more experiments, and spend more money. But let’s do it to build a shared understanding what our students need to learn— the content they need to learn. Then let’s use the best technology available and make the kind of investments we need in professional development to teach that content effectively. In light of the poor results other approaches have yielded, is there any other sane course?

Lynne Munson

*Attributed.

Posted in Curriculum, English/Language Arts, Math and Science, NAEP | 2 Comments »

The “Continuous Narrowing” of ESEA

Monday, October 17th, 2011

In September 2009, when reauthorization of ESEA seemed imminent, Secretary Duncan said, “Let us build a law that discourages a narrowing of curriculum and promotes a well-rounded education that draws children into sciences and history, languages and the arts in order to build a society distinguished by both intellectual and economic prowess.”

Now, more than two years later, Sen. Harkin has released a draft ESEA reauthorization proposal. And, in spite of the Department’s significant influence, the draft bill’s support of the “well-rounded education” Duncan touted is, well, almost undetectable.

The document is 860 pages long. Student achievement in “Core Academic Subjects” is referenced a dozen times, but specifics never arise. This tome contains no mentions of chemistry, physics, or biology, for example. Music gets four mentions; art only one. And history and civics just two. How are we going to improve education if no one is willing to talk about the substance of what is being taught?

Meanwhile, the shape, method, and approach to accountability measures continue to be tweaked, tuned, and obsessed over. The big news the draft contains is a reinvention of the current accountability system, scrapping AYP’s strict performance targets in favor of a measure of “continuous improvement” for all students and for particular subgroups.

But “continuous improvement” will do nothing to address ESEA’s intense focus on math and reading at the expense of the rest of the liberal arts. Although the bill would shift testing requirements to include measures for student growth, required tests would continue to measure student achievement in only math, reading and science. And the science test would remain inconsequential to “continuous improvement.” Why not widen the lens of the “continuous improvement” measure to include other subjects? It is an idea that would present many challenges and face many obstacles, but it is at least worth discussing.

Writing about the unintended consequences of NCLB, Diane Ravitch and Checker Finn predicted, “Rich kids will study philosophy and art, music and history, while their poor peers will fill in bubbles on test sheets. The lucky few will spawn the next generation of tycoons, political leaders, inventors, authors, artists and entrepreneurs. The less lucky masses will see narrower opportunities.”

We know that is happening already. And if anything resembling Harkin’s draft becomes law, the problem will only get worse.

Lynne Munson

Posted in Arts, Assessment, Curriculum, English/Language Arts, ESEA, Foreign Language, History/Social Studies, Math and Science | No Comments »

Why Do “Good” Schools Test Badly?

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Curious about the status of the “Reading Wars,” education reporter John Merrow recently visited a “great” school in a high-poverty neighborhood. It’s a school where first graders are succeeding—but only one in five fourth grade students reads at grade level.

Among other hypotheses, their teachers wonder (as others have found) if the fourth graders’ lack of content knowledge negatively impacts their reading comprehension. After all, as students progress to more complex texts at higher grade levels, content knowledge matters all the more. Merrow writes:

“Now they have to reach conclusions and draw inferences, and that’s much tougher.

“We looked over past tests, and, sure enough, the passages were about subjects that poor kids in the south Bronx may not be familiar with (cicadas or dragonflies were two of the subjects, for example). Answering the questions did require inferential leaps, just as we had been told.”

In first grade, basic decoding skills are enough to unpack even bizarre sentences like Merrow’s “The blue pancake went swimming in the lake and ate a frog.” But they’re not enough to answer more difficult reading comprehension questions, such as those on the 4^th grade NAEP in Reading, which touch on science and social studies content (examples, here).

While fourth grade scores have risen slightly in the past fifteen years, the scores of 8th and 12th graders are stagnant. Schools like the one Merrow visited have made huge strides in teaching their youngest students essential decoding skills. In fact, with older students’ scores so low in comparison, Merrow surmises that maybe their reading deficiencies are only in the eyes of the tests. Or the result of test-taking anxiety or a growing awareness of poverty.

The impact of poverty is inarguable. And test scores are far from perfect tools of evaluation. But here’s another possibility: Maybe schools are failing to teach important content, and, more importantly, maybe they’re failing to gift students with a thirst for it. And no amount of test prep can make up for this lack.

Stephanie Porowski

Update: Core Knowledge’s Robert Pondiscio has a similar take. It’s worth your read.

Posted in English/Language Arts, NAEP | 1 Comment »

Honors Content for ALL Students

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

In the latest installment of The Answer Sheet’s “Faces of Learning,” a student remembers how her “B track” class lacked access to quality content:

“I wondered how it was that others read novels and were able to take trips to Washington, D.C. when I was not. I knew what experiences I was missing by being a member of the band and sitting next to my Anglo band member friends in the clarinet and flute sections who seemed to always be reading interesting books and had more challenging homework assignments than me. They would innocently ask me if I had read John Steinbeck, George Orwell, or Lord of the Flies. My band friends would tell me what these texts were about and I wondered why I never got them assigned to me in my classes.”

And she remembers a wonderful 11^th grade teacher who insisted on treating her class, regardless of its “track,” like honors students.

“… [T]his class also empowered me to imagine that I, too, could thrive in that environment. Mrs. Eli’s class liberated me from a subterranean, subaltern fear that I would never be ‘college material.’ In turn, I realized that I could rise to standards that were much higher than those that were set for me in my regular classes. It is therefore no accident that I later went to college and majored in English and minored in Spanish in the same hometown university to which Mrs. Eli’s class had sent me.”

Posted in English/Language Arts | No Comments »

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Archive for the ‘English/Language Arts’ Category

How Vincent van Gogh Can Help You Teach to the CCSS

From Shakespeare to Steinbeck, Literature is Losing Value in School

NAEP: Proof of Education Insanity

Why Do “Good” Schools Test Badly?

Honors Content for ALL Students

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