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Purpose and Curricular Connections
In this Learning Experience, students make a 4-12 page picture book.
Student Work: Picture Book-Fellow Friends (and Rubric)
Making picture books gives students new ways of thinking and approaching a subject, which can help them become better writers. In this Learning Experience they produce a book, which they can share, giving them a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.
The course is designed to allow each student to find his or her own best methods of working. The activities in each lesson give students tools for exploring their own knowledge and experience, acquiring new expertise, and constructing their own story.
Picture Books evolved from Waterways poetry chapbook series, In Search of a Song, which had also evolved into a district wide program, entitled Volumes and Volumes of Poetry. To create the picture books a professional picture book artist is employed by the Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players.
Students in the program are from Frederick Douglass Literacy Center and New York City Vocational Training Center (VTC). Each class is a self-contained class taught by one teacher. The 16-21 year old VTC students have 5th - 7th grade literacy skills. Their teacher provides academic, electronic, and computer instruction. The 16-21 year old Frederick Douglass students had reading levels of 1.1-2.5. The picture book project takes place over ten 90-minute sessions, held weekly over a ten-week period.
Every student who participates in the learning experience publishes a picture book. Some of the picture books are selected for publication in Waterways annual student anthology, Streams.
The curriculum is integrated to varying degrees with regular classroom curriculum, through book topics or other connections to classroom lessons.
Standards and Performance Indicators
Visual Arts Standard 1 - Creating, Performaing and Participating in the Arts
Students will actively engage in the processes that constitute creation and performance in the arts and participate in various roles in the arts (Visual).
Key Idea: Students will make works of art that explore different kinds of subject matter, topics, themes, and metaphors. Students will understand and use sensory elements, organization principles. and expressive art. Students will use a variety of art materials, processes, mediums, and techniques, and use appropriate technologies for creating and exhibiting visual art works.
Performance Indicator: Students reveal through their work a broad investigation of a variety of individual ideas and at least one theme explored imaginatively and in depth.
Visual Arts Standard 2 - Knowing and Using Arts Materials and Resources
Students will be knowledgeable about and make use of the materials and resources available for participation in the arts in various roles (Visual).
Key Idea: Students will know and use a variety of visual arts materials, techniques, and processes.
Performance Indicator: Students will understand the characteristics of various mediums in order to select those that are appropriate for their purposes and intent.
English Language Standard 2 - Language for Literary Response and Expression - Speaking and Writing
Students will read, write, listen, and speak for literary responses and expression.Key Idea: Speaking and writing for literary response involves presenting interpretations, analysises and reactions to the content and the language of text. Speaking and writing for literary expression involves producing imaginative texts that use language text structures that are inventive and often multilayered.
Performance Indicator: Students write origianl pieces in a variety of literary forms, correctly using the conventions of the genre and using structure and vocabulary to achieve an effect
Prior Knowledge
Students need to be willing to try new things but there is no art or writing prerequisite; the course is designed to work with classes where people have widely varying levels of experience, and to be an introduction to those with little or no art experience.