Mainely Middle
Journal of the Maine Association for Middle
Level Education
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2001/2002 |
Christina's WorldThis article began as an e-mail to a colleague in another school. As I continued to type and realized what fun the students and I had with this unit, I decided to e-mail it to all my teacher friends. Now, I share it with you. Was it what I expected? No way! It was way cooler than what I thought it would be. Samatha, grade 8 We just came back from our field trip to the Farnsworth Museum. What a wonderful experience! I am so thrilled about it that I wanted to share it with you in case you are interested in using it in the classroom. I used it in language arts, but it could also be used in social studies or art. The whole idea came about from a workshop that I attended at the MAMLE Conference by Peter Scontras from Saco Middle School. Due to the timing of the field trip, this was a quick unit (less than two weeks). As soon as I saw the painting of 'Christina's World', I thought he was another artist who wanted money, but then I saw his other paintings and my thoughts changed. He did what he loved to do, paint! Thomas, grade 8 I had a copy of Christina's World hanging in my room. Fortunately, one of my students' mother is an art teacher and she had a copy, along with several other Wyeth prints which were displayed in the hall. The first class was spent doing a sensory inventory of the picture (Figure 1). I also told the students the story of Christina and Andrew Wyeth. The thing they remember most from that day is when I took my shoes off and walked on the outsides of my feet the way Christina did after having the "flu" at three and a half. I introduced the essay, 3 pages through Christina's eyes (Figure 2). The following day, three webs were due (Figure 3), one for the lead, body, and the conclusion. This was a bit awkward, as we don't spend much time doing webs. I didn't collect them, I just checked off whether they were done or not. It was different from what I expected, because I thought it was going to be like any other museum &endash; just paintings of things, most of which I usually find boring… At the Farnsworth, when I looked at the paintings, there was a feeling that came over me I find hard to describe. It was almost as though each painting told a story of its own. Devin, grade 8 The next class, the students wanted to know more about Christina. How did she move with polio, etc.? Well, right there during my first LA class of the day, I had an inspiration. I took the students outside and had them transport themselves the way Christina would have transported herself to the cemetery to visit her parents' graves. This was another memorable part of this experience for most of the students. (I knew they took it seriously because there was no fooling around and everyone participated.) It was a windy day, which caused the students to debate what kind of weather would hold Christina back from visiting her parents. We were outside no longer than five minutes. Back inside, the students wrote quietly for approximately five minutes on their experience. Sharing was done voluntarily. The students used some of the descriptions of their experience in their rough draft. The rest of the class was spent beginning the draft, which was due two days later. I wonder what was going through his mind when he did all his paintings. Becky, grade 7 *Important note about the writing &endash; one of the instructions was sentences could not start with "orange" words. These words consisted of: the, I, he, she, they, so, then, because, my, and, but. Instead, they were to try to use "yellow" sentence openers such as: as soon as, therefore, when, since, prepositional and participial phrases, etc. Because of Mr. Scontras' wonderful idea, my students' writing has a more sophisticated sound to it. Okay, so the rough draft is done. Our last class of the first week (Friday) was spent on peer conferences and revisions. Their revised copy was due on Tuesday when we returned from Veteran's Day. Tuesday through Friday (3 classes), I did teacher conferences with the students. Even though they were required, not all students did them. (Bummer for them, they were marked down.) The final copy of their paper, and, of course, everything they did during the writing process, was due on Monday, the day before our big trip to the Farnsworth. As with any class, I had a few that did not complete it. URRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!! I reviewed the museum essay with them on Monday. I figured it would be too confusing if I did it the day of the trip. This essay was due the day after our trip. Because of the wonderful support from the museum and MBNA, I have sent some of the students' essays to them. Before walking into the museum, I had completely different expectations of what was going to happen. In my head, I pictured the whole 7/8 class walking along hallways guided by one museum employee who droned on about things we either did not care to know or already did. Fortunately, my visualization was incorrect. Tara, grade 8 The day of the trip to the Farnsworth had finally arrived! After a comfortable ride down in coach busses supplied by MBNA, we reached our destination. We had signed up for the Wyeth tour and an egg tempra workshop. Because there were so many of us, we were broken up into four groups. My group began by looking at some studies of Andrew's and doing a study of our own. I was amazed at the number of "rough drafts" an artist does before painting the "final copy." It is all very comparable to writing. Getting to draw pictures was the coolest part of the museum. Alex, grade 7 After we did our study, we gazed upon many other paintings by Andrew Wyeth. Even though Christina's World was no longer on display, the students enjoyed other paintings from the Wyeths. Even though I had seen everything before, it still was amazing to see the same works of art we have been studying right before my eyes! Leah, grade 8 Most of Andrew's paintings are cloudy and near the water. Josh, grade 7 I feel that I can pick out paintings done by Andrew Wyeth now and that feels neat. Adam, grade 8 From the gazing, we went to the workshop where we learned how to make egg tempras (the kids did this!) and painted our studies. The students did some pretty amazing pictures which you can see hanging on the hallway in our school. The coolest part of all was going into the painting room where you make your own paint. We made the paint out of egg yolk. It was fun and messy to do. Louden, grade 8 I did not know that you can make paint out of egg and ground up stuff like trees and all kinds of weird stuff. Matt, grade 7 After the painting, we headed to church to check out N.C. and Jamie's paintings. While at N.C.'s the students wrote a story based on one of the paintings. A few students then chose to read theirs aloud while standing in front of the painting that inspired them. We ended our day by looking at paintings done by Jamie Wyeth. The students were fascinated with the studies done on cardboard. While hearing these stories, I was very impressed that my group's guide knew so much about the Wyeth's and their paintings. Danielle, grade 7 At the Farnsworth you can get as close as you want, but no touching. I like the way the museum is set up. Haylee, grade 8 It would be nice if we could go on another field trip to her house and see all the details in person. Justin, grade 8 What an incredible day!! Students' behavior was fantastic and we had no problems even from the students from which we anticipated them. Through the writing of both the essay topics, 'Christina's World' and the Farnsworth trip (Figure 4), students communicated their experience of a world far from Orland, Maine. Somehow the tricky people at the Farnsworth Museum managed to show us a wonderful time, while teaching us about art styles and the three generations of Wyeth artists. Tara, grade 8 Overall I had a great trip. Thanks a lot! Ross, grade 8 I think you should go there with everyone of your classes. General Consesus grade 7/8 Thank you to Peter Scontas for giving me the inspiration to do this unit, MBNA for sponsoring the trip to the Farnsworth, the Farnsworth for making the museum interesting and "hands-on" and most of all I thank my students for making it so much fun! My passion for teaching lives on! **MBNA sponsors trips to the Farnsworth for all schools. They will pay for (or provide) transportation. Call the Farnsworth for more details.
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