How Do I Love Thee? CEP 818 Patterning Identifying patterns In my lesson on spatial description, students are required to describe a room they see. To do it well, they have to first identify what kind of room it is (office, living room, bedroom, …) and then adopt a descriptive style that makes it easy for the reader to remember as many details as possible. Since people’s retention increases as the description follows an appropriate pattern, students have to recognize an existing pattern in the room they’re about to describe. They can associate familiar shapes with the disposition of the furniture (bodily part such as a face, a letter of the alphabet, an animal) so the reader can recall the details as such. Let’s take the room below as an example.
One pattern some students may identify is the letter of the alphabet C that the dining room table and the 3 sofas form, while others may recognize the letter G including the coffee table. Some may even see that the 3 sofas form a broad smile. Others may adopt a different style altogether. They may decide to see a pattern of light and shadow. They move from the most-lit Created by: Jean-Claude Aura
Date: October 2010
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How Do I Love Thee? CEP 818 part in front of the window to the darker parts towards the door or the side opposite the window. Whichever pattern students decide to identify, the reader will always be able to make the connection between that pattern and the way the furniture is laid. Forming new patterns Once students are done with identifying existing patterns in a given furnished room, they can start thinking up new patterns to design a room of their own taste. This becomes a personalized activity in which students both design their own room and go about describing it from their perspective. They can come up with all sorts of designs, matching different furniture and colors that result in what they consider their favorite room. Personalizing problems renders an activity interesting enough to encourage students to learn a particular skill. While acquiring the skill of spatial description, students start patterning till they reach their ideal room. Just as students are learning patterning through spatial description, this patterning skill may prove to be useful in other disciplines such as art. In this way, the skill of patterning has become cross disciplinary.
Created by: Jean-Claude Aura
Date: October 2010
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