Curricular Resources > 2008 Volume III > Unit 5 (08.03.05) > Section 1

Pride of Place: New Haven Material and Visual Culture

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 08.03.05

Unit Guide

Discovering New Haven’s History of Public Art

Melissa Sands

Tools for this unit:

Your feedback is important to us!

After viewing our curriculum units, please take a few minutes to help us understand how the units, which were created by public school teachers, may be useful to others.

Give Feedback

Introduction

I teach visual arts at Christopher Columbus Family Academy in New Haven, CT, a preschool through eighth grade dual language school. Students enter our school with dominance in either the English or Spanish language. The school’s mission is to have every student bi-literate by the end of eighth grade. Being that New Haven has a very diverse population and that Columbus is a school of choice, unlike a magnet school, all of our students live in New Haven but not necessarily in the school neighborhood. The result is an extremely diverse student population. Our students come from a multitude of Hispanic countries as well as many regions of the U.S. Many of these students are second language learners. Using visual techniques is very important in teaching second language learners. My focus is to use these techniques to help students develop a visual literacy that will help break through the language barrier and give them a greater understanding of culture.

Previous Next Back to Top