David N. Reynolds
This is an
art-and-literature
course, using pioneering methods of teaching
both
in order to make some difficult texts, and a difficult period of American history, more exciting and accessible to students who usually find this material challenging if not downright off-putting. This unit will be used in a sophomore high school class entitled “American Nation”, which covers American History and Literature from the Native Americans to the Civil War. American Nation is a team-taught double-block class with history instruction for one and one-half hours and English instruction for the same amount of time. By working together as teachers in the same classroom, the students study history and English simultaneously. For example, when Mr. Roman, the history instructor, teaches the Navaho timeline, I, as the language arts instructor, might do a story such as “It Was the Wind that Gave them Life,” an excellent Navaho creation story; or when studying the Revolutionary War the students might read,
My Brother Sam is Dead
. Team teaching is great not only for matching content across curriculum, but also for classroom management and individual instruction because two teachers are always in the classroom.
American Nation was developed at High School in the Community as a course to help beginner and intermediate students learn United States history and literature as thoroughly as possible, as well as, prepare students for the CAPT exams. After star testing this year, 75% of the sophomores in our class read at a 6th grade or below reading level. For these students to pass a testing exam which requires them to interpret, reflect, connect, and assess, a piece of literature, as the CAPT requires, they need to learn efficient reading and thinking techniques within a short time. One way to do so is to reintroduce reading as a concept, and a skill that needs to be learned again. From the first day of class I reinvent reading for my students to make literature approachable, fun, and meaningful. I do this through the development of five skills: predicting, visualizing, clarifying, summarizing, and questioning. By repeating these steps in chronological order during each reading assignment, the students should find that active reading is much different than word decoding. I have included in the appendix, (Overhead 1.0), a text-rendering worksheet I use with my students when introducing this concept.
My unit, “Discovering American Identity through Writings and Paintings, 1800-1845”, concentrates directly on the visualization skill of the five-part reading process. Even though this unit concentrates specifically on one skill, visualization, it does not mean that the other skills will be neglected or useless. For example, one could read the title of a picture to the students before showing them the picture and ask them to predict what the picture might look like. By doing so, the students begin to create their own vision, working the gears of their imagination, and when the picture is shown they are invested in its study, at the least -- “is it like my picture or is it not?” Once the picture is displayed, the students then are set on the task of decipher meaning from the image, or reading the image.
An image is wonderful because it isolates student thinking. If a student struggles with reading, analysis becomes another hurdle to leap on an ever-ascending mountain. An image allows the student to concentrate on analysis only, for words are only needed to describe what a student is thinking, not the impetus on which to ponder. For example, a student struggling with critical analysis of a short story might be struggling because s/he was unable to interpret, or, for lack of a better word, “read” the story. With a painting this obstacle is removed and this student might then respond loquaciously to the image because it necessitates a different type of reading. The confidence a struggling reader may gain through an activity such as this is invaluable. As teachers and cognitive scientists become more aware of the multiple ways the brain demonstrates intelligence, activities such as picture reading will become further tools of intellectual insight. Ultimately, the activity should serve to give students confidence in analyzing all forms of expression, especially art and literature.
Lastly, the unit gains greater momentum through content. Because the images the students will view have been hand-selected for their interest and excitement, each painting furthers the students’ understanding of American culture and its representation, from the Native Americans to the Civil War. Ultimately, the students will exit the class with a strong, holistic, and critical view of American literature, artwork and culture.
