Comments from Molly Barker:

New York City's Alternative, Adult and Continuing Education Schools and Programs addresses the needs of a transient student population, composed frequently of students in crisis. They have either not attended or been truant from traditional schools. They have not experienced art classes prior to now. Indeed it is unlikely that they have ever been to a museum. The students find themselves outside of the traditional school system due to recent immigration, institutionalization, depressed academic skills, disability, substance abuse, pregnancy, or choice.

Vocational Training Center is an alternative program where students have opted to enroll at a site where they are given 90 minutes of classroom instruction and spend the rest of the school day engaged in on site experiential learning. Students come into the program for a variety of reasons, including recent immigration, depressed academic skills, disability, and opting to find an alternative to an unsuccessful high school placement. The Frederick Douglass Literacy Center serves high school students who test below third grade in standardized reading tests.

Students enter alternative programs from diverse streams, and do not share common school experiences. Alternative teachers are sensitive to a wide range of student backgrounds, and encourage students to share information in class.

This course was developed as a way to extend the reach of Waterways poetry chapbooks in a different direction, and to give the students a new experience in the arts and a new approach to writing. It also provides a supportive structure for them to plan and complete a self-contained project with a tangible end product.

The project gives students a new way of expressing themselves and a time and place to develop their own ideas about their own experience. Some of these students are rarely if ever asked to present their own thoughts on their own subject, and refine and present them formally.

The project allows students to use their strengths to build up skills in areas of weakness.

For example, one student has a facility with words but lacks confidence to create visual images. One exercise started with a word given by the artist. He then drew a symbol of the word. Adding more of his own words or using words suggested by the artist he integrated the whole into a visual narrative. Another student is a visual learner with more confidence in his drawing ability than verbal. Using scratchboard and spatial perspective techniques gave him confidence to write. Talking about his drawings he described the characters' world, and his own world. For weeks he would just sit with pencil in hand when asked to write. Finally after developing a relationship with him through teaching drawing, the teacher asked him to write about his experience in this art class. At the end of the period he shyly handed in his paragraph, saying, "I don’t know what to say. I feel dumb when I write. I can express myself better in drawing than in writing or music or anything else. It’s an escape from everything. I feel that when people see what I draw, see my work, they can see who I am, what I do." His reflection read:

"I like to draw because it’s a way to get away from my problems. Drawing is on of my ways to express myself, escape from everything. It’s like going to my own world - wherever you look is art, anything you touch is art, and whatever you feel is art."

Two other students, also visual learners, have minimal literacy skills. Story boarding provided structure for narratives and gave clues to create pictures that would tell their stories. They were then able to write their stories.

From this experience I am learning about the students’ lives and histories, and the factors that have landed them where they are. I am learning more about what the different obstacles are to writing, and how to recognize them. It’s difficult because students reveal their problems in such different ways. I had one student who constantly disrupted the class, breaking pencils into tiny pieces and throwing them, making lewd comments, and imitating everything I said in a sing-song sarcastic voice. Finally I realized that he couldn’t read and would try and upset any situation in which he’d be asked to read or write. He was amazed when I showed him a graphic novel, a thick book with no words. After that I was able to get him to calm down and work by removing the pressure to write. After drawing out a simple, complete narrative, he wrote the story. When he got his book back printed, he read it aloud as if discovering something to be proud of.

In previous peer reviews these picture books received thoughtful, enthusiastically positive responses. People were moved by the students’ stories and thoughts. It seemed to me evidence of the students’ mastery of the art form that strangers could look at them and get so much out of them.

In the peer review sessions I got some ideas from teachers on how to encourage rewrites and editing. There have been other practical suggestions, such as using a digital camera as another image-making tool. Someone suggested incorporating a written reflection into each session.

I learned that although sometimes I feel like much of the evidence of student learning is in classroom interactions and students’ preparatory word, the final books themselves are quite rich with information accessible to other people.

When I first started this class, I didn’t know what it was going to be about. I started on an art project. It was to make a book. It was fun. It made you think about a lot. My book is based on my future. What I like about my book is that it’s going to make me do more. I want to reach my goal in life. I learned a lot from this art class. I would like to do it again some time.
Karen

What I liked best about my book is that it’s about what I do best, graffiti and the obstacles I have to go through just to gain my goal, "fame".
Nelson

The class is to create pictures, write about the pictures, what each picture means for each person. What I like in the book is what I wrote in my book bout my computer. I liked it because it’s real, everything I said in my book. And I like the title of the book. I like the cover, it’s very nice.
Evelyn

I want to thank everyone from the Waterways Projects. I really appreciate all the faith you all have in us and the chance you gave us to show you our talent and trust me when I say we are going to do our best or at least try. And especially thank M for being patient and giving us ideas and helping us. And the teacher that has all my respect J - with my short time I have learned a lot from him and again thank you for making all these dreams possible.
Felix

Life is a maze of different emotions. Some are good, and bad. Art puts some of those emotions on paper, so they can express themselves through the pencil or pen.
Javier

Writing is the most important stress release because when you’re writing there’s nobody in your business. It’s more isolated from others. That’s why most people get diaries. Drawing is more feeling, expressing yourself with the pen, pencil, and colors.
Kevin

The work that I do in this class was fun because it help me challenge my feeling in life. It also help me to do something new and challenging in this class. It was interesting to learn how to draw on a new, different level.
Luis

At first I was mad because I thought I couldn’t do it. But when I started I felt good because I could see that I could do it. It felt good trying to draw it. It wasn’t perfect, but it was something. It made me stay and draw more trees.
Veronica

To draw something you have to find features that attracts you, and you stare at it without looking at the paper try to visualize that with your hand. It seems hard but you have to try, it takes a little time. But once you get the hang of it, and practice and practice one day you can make a lot of money just drawing people and it’s something that you love to do.
Eli

While I was writing my poem… I felt it was very challenging but basically I thought about my mom and how wonderful she is I dedicated my thoughts and feelings, what I thought about my mom, on this poem.
Rudy

Art is a mystery but I like it because you always wonder what your finishing touch is going to be. We have worked on several types of projects but I liked the black boards we used that was fun but hard to work with so I just played with it for a while until I found something and that worked great. We learned how to make men in different poses that was cool but I like to draw a lot of trees and write a lot being an artist is a lot of fun and you can do it too just pick up a pencil and paper anything can happen.
Anthony