Reflection 3

What? Using children's picture books and their illustrations to teach children how to understand, appreciate, and make art is a perfect introduction to the kind of passion needed to be successful in creating art. By introducing them to one particular illustrator at a time, they can come to know certain elements used in each artist's work to make it their own style. Children can identify styles and elements from different illustrators that they like by how they feel the art enhances the story in the book. They can understand what they like and dislike and can begin to form their own style preferences with their own art, and they can feel more valued as young artists and learners as they learn more ways to create their own masterpieces.

So What? I can effectively prepare to teach students about artists and their styles by introducing one artist at a time through children's literature. I can spend an adequate amount of time providing facts about that artist's life that will interest them. I can read them that artist's collection of children's books without showing them the illustrations, and then I can show them the illustrations after. That would help them understand how much illustrations add to the story. I could then ask the children if they pictured the story different in their minds than what the illustrator drew or if they were able to picture anything at all. We could have a class activity where we could each draw how we each pictured the story and see the similarities and differences between the book's actual illustrations and the class's new illustrations. Each member of the class could draw a different scene, and we could place their pictures in place of the artist's pictures to make the students feel like illustrators of a children's story. Before having them do their own illustrations, I could teach them about the techniques that certain artist used in the book and ask them to incorporate one of them into their piece of art. By the end of the year, they should be able to know how to use many techniques and create a masterpiece all on their own of a story of their choice.

Now What? It will be important to me to teach my students art because I have a strong belief that it improves all other areas of thinking and learning. I will model my passion for art along with my excitement for other subject areas, and through that, I can motivate students to be more engaged in learning- whether it be learning art or learning other subjects through art. Incorporating art skills into my curriculum will allow new schemas to be created and make for a more diverse and creative learning environment. It will be more diverse because there are so many different ways of expressing art and so many styles and elements with all those categories of art. Art will open up the classroom to a broader range of interpretation for new ideas, and it will create a greater opportunity to reach positive conclusions and experiences about learning and education overall.