Art and Literacy

Students are very visual learners and in my experience I feel that teachers do not present material in a visual way often enough for students to have a clear understanding of the material. I think it is a great idea for students to create a story with pictures and then they can go back and add words or talk about their story to someone. I noticed in many lessons that I have taught that students need to have multiple forms of assessment so that they have a variety of ways to show their knowledge. In a science lesson, I taught about pollination as part of it and the students were given the option to write or draw what they knew pollination to be. Every student in the class decided to draw it. It is important to have visuals along with literacy because I feel that children can really have a much better understanding of the story and will be able to remember it by thinking of the pictures.

One of my favorite children’s books is called My Teacher For President by Kay Winters and Illustrated by Denise Brunkus. This is such a great book because it shows the jobs the president does and relates it to things that the teacher does in the classroom. For example, both the president and the teacher finds jobs for people. The teacher and the president both have to deal with the media. The words on the page tell that the teacher and president do the same activities but the pictures show a completely different meaning. For example the page where it talks about the media shows the president dealing with cameras and news stations while it shows the teacher trying to work the VCR playing on the television in the classroom. The pictures show great detail and the differences between the president and the teacher but the words tell about the similarities. It is a comical book that could be a great opening to a lesson on the election. The teacher could ask the students what they think is part of the presidents job. The teacher could then read the book to the class and have the students listen and look for similarities and differences. A discussion could occur after reading the book about the jobs of a president. This book will help students to remember the jobs because it makes connections with a teacher, something they have knowledge in and it is comical. After, the students could then break up into groups and research about a particular job the president does, such as making peace. The group would then have to give a real life example from the current president to the class about that job the president does.