Writing from Art: Building better readers, thinkers, and writers through analysis of visual art
ALFIE GUY, Director of the Yale Writing Center has said…
“The brilliance of the approach is that it teaches students a method--but not a formula. Even if you always start with observations, you wind up on your own path... this combination of structure and freedom extends to the teachers, who can use the foundation while adapting the details for their specific tastes and needs... Your approach is deeply sound, so that once teachers become familiar with it, they can adapt it to their own preferences and circumstances. That way, each one of them will be teaching from their own strengths, even as they're supported by a thorough and textured process.”
Walnut Hill School for the Arts invites you to join their humanities faculty and other English and history teachers for a daylong workshop on the use of visual art in the teaching of writing. We will share specific lessons and exercises designed to teach students to be more careful readers, make more critical analyses, and write more original and powerful arguments. Flooded every day with images and texts of all sorts, our students need the writing and thinking skills that close attention to complex images can so powerfully teach.
Sessions will include
• exercises to develop skills of close and objective observation
• techniques for teaching sound inference and pattern building
• lessons for moving students toward analysis, thesis, and argument
• hands on experience with specific techniques with groups of peer teachers
• ways to apply these techniques to historical and literary texts
And past participants said…
• This workshop will change my approach to my teaching of writing thesis essays, almost always the least favorite writing for students... Most of all, I admire the approach to creating a thesis and fashioning a structured approach to analyzing.
• The message of this workshop, learning to look at our world more closely and to draw inferences based upon our observations and not preconceived notions, is an essential one for all educators!
• It was so interesting, cohesive, and useful. I've already used some of the activities and techniques in my classes.
• I thought the flow of the day was well planned. Having varied methods of interacting with each other was stimulating and inspirational. Thank you!
• I left contemplating how challenging it is to be "purely" observant (holding off making inferences). I also left very excited to begin creating exercises designed to strengthen this skill.
Fees: Register above with your credit card or download the Registration Material to pay by check.
AISNE Member Fees: $195 per person; three or more registered at same time, $175 per person
Non-Member Fee: $390 per person
Fee includes all materials, continental breakfast and lunch.
Refund Policy: two weeks or more out = 50%; less than two weeks = 0%
The Humanities at Walnut Hill School for the Arts
Since 2007 the Humanities Department at Walnut Hill has been developing a focused core skills curriculum informed by the processes of art making and studio thinking. The resulting curriculum is designed to break down formulaic and passive habits in student thinking and writing and to develop instead powerful and empowering habits of observation, critical thinking, and analytical writing. The department presented its first workshop to outside faculty in November of 2011.
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