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of the book “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, the book that became a beautiful film in which Scarlett Yohansson stars. And then it dawned on me….What if I asked students to think of a story, their own story, inside the painting? What if they could come up with their own version of the relationship of the figures in a painting? My hypothesis was that if they took ownership of such a task, they would be more interested in researching about the artist, the painting, the socio-political framework and the historical background within which the artist created the painting! And so it happened!
ESL/EFL How Can Students Develop Writing Skills Within The Discipline Of Arts? by Venie Gaki, ESL/EFL Faculty
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ne of the primary goals of an ESL teacher is to help students whose first language is other than English, improve their productive skills in all disciplines. For the advanced level of English learners, the last unit for the year was titled “The need for art”. All students seem to understand the importance of art in our lives, the need for art...At least, this is what ESL 2 students seemed to comprehend when the unit was introduced. Art….an indispensable component in most people’s lives…. Art….an inherent need that helps people express feelings and emotions…. Art….a means of delivering historical and socio-political information about an era …. However, they unanimously said that when it comes to appreciation, they don’t know what to say or write when a teacher requests for such a task. When they are “forced” to visit a museum - indeed, “forced” was the exact word they used- they feel that they suffer from an affliction….Instead, they keep thinking about the game they would be playing or the movie they could be watching...And all this reminded me of a TED-talk I had watched by Tracy Chevallier, the author
For the successful completion of this project, we first watched Tracy Chevalier’s TED-talk “Finding the story inside the painting”, in which the presenter urged the audience to skim through the paintings in a museum and then focus on the one that makes them “stop in their tracks”. We took a virtual tour in the Louvre and the National Gallery in London and asked students to look at the painting that made them stop in their tracks. I provided them with a site that included the 50 most famous paintings of all times. Each student picked a painting that had caught their attention. The first exercise was to ask questions that started with an interrogative pronoun without having done any research whatsoever; “who is the man?” or “ who do you think he is looking at?” and “where is he and what is he doing?” But most importantly “why is he looking in that direction or why is he there doing what he is doing?” Students answered the questions using their imagination and gut feeling. This what they needed to write a summary of their story; their first draft. Then, they were asked to do research on the artist and the era in which he or she created the painting. Finally, their task was to place their story in the historical background of the painting. The stories I read were magnificent! The Mona Liza, Starry Night, Cafe Terrace at Night, American Gothic, The Persistence of Memory, The Kiss, The School of Athens, Portrait of Madame Recamier, Impression, Liberty Leading the People were some of the stories that the students wrote. Some of the students took the story one step further and made trailers for potential movies! The last step was to write the critique of the painting, using all the terms and conventions that pertain to such a written task. They were happy to do so, as they saw the painting from a different perspective now; not the expert’s, not the teacher’s, but their own, giving their own interpretations, making their own assumptions. Not only had they learned to write an academic paper and critique art, but also to value and cherish art!
