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Creating a School-Wide
Visual Arts Initiative for
CPS Kipling Elementary School
(a Fine and Performing Arts Magnet Cluster School)
This program was funded by the Illinois Arts Council
Artist-as-Resource Grant Program.
OverviewRudyard Kipling Elementary School is on Chicago's far south side. As a CPS's Fine and Performing Arts Magnet Cluster School, they have full-time music instruction and a part-time dance teacher. The responsibility of presenting lessons in visual arts has always rested with the classroom teacher. None of the classroom teachers have formal art education background. Principal Corene Washington and her art education committee had decided in 2001 that each classroom would study a particular artist and that each classroom teacher would become an expert on the life and work of that artist. This body of knowledge would then be linked throughout the regular classroom curriculum: social studies, writing work, reading, and often math and science. To begin to prepare teachers to become more comfortable with visual arts playing a key role in their classroom, we created the following plan: Professional Development
Before start of the 2001-2002 school year, teachers completed our Elementary Art Education Seminar to give them an introduction to basic art terms and concepts. Teachers completed a journal of work, which enabled them to present these same introductory lessons to their students. Topics included the color wheel, line and shape, texture, value, form and dimension, faces and composition. At the beginning of the 2002-2003 school year, we created a special professional development experience introducing ways of linking the life and work of an artist to social studies (geography, history, economics) and language arts (reading, researching, report writing, interpretive writing). We examined the life and work of an artist and an artist group as examples: Jonathan Green (United States, b. 1955) and the Ndebele women of what is now South Africa (1700s to the present). Both choices offered many opportunities to demonstrate the importance of studying an artist in historical and social context and the rich opportunities for linking the study of visual arts to other areas of the classroom. We discussed the value of organizing our curriculum around a DBAE (Discipline Based Art Education) approach where we focus on art history, art appreciation, aesthetics and art production. Curriculum DevelopmentBy the end of the 2001-2002 school year, each classroom teacher had selected a particular artist for classroom study. Over the summer, Diane Sutliff researched and prepared curriculum support materials for each selected artist that included:
That fall, each classroom teacher received a large packet of information, and a copy was placed on permanent file in the school library. Reproductions and books were signed out to each teacher. Classroom teachers had the opportunity to meet with Diane to review the contents of the folder and the resources. Additional meeting time was scheduled during the year for continued planning and guidance.
Artist-as-Resource In the ClassroomDuring the 2001-2002 school year, Diane made regular visits to the kindergarten and 1st grade classrooms at Kipling School. Because these students were so young, it was decided to concentrate on methods, terms and concepts. We explored collage technique with both construction paper and tissue paper, mixing tempera paint primary colors to create secondary colors, texture rubbings, working with modeling dough and more. Each of these experiences followed the GGYS Early Childhood project model: real art words and concepts, opportunity to use all senses, skill building opportunities and creative freedom. In addition to having a chance to flex self-expression muscles, students came away with a sound understanding of the mixing primary color wheel, a comfort level in many media and a sense of responsibility about their work, their materials and their workspace. Classroom teachers were asked to participate during the art experiences, and were provided with lesson plans to use in the future. They also received a copy of the handbook Go Get Your Smock! Creative and Independent Art Experiences from the Montessori Classroom. These classroom visits were designed to function both as learning experiences for the children and as model-teaching learning experiences for the teachers.
To expand on this Artist-as-Resource concept, Diane worked in the 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms during the 2002-2003 school year. The focus for the first half of the series of classroom visits would be to present lessons stressing art terms and concepts. (Last year's first graders who were now second grade students had a decided leg up on their third grade colleagues, pointing out the importance of consistency of any program from year to year.) Many of these initial lessons were much like those presented to students the previous year.
The second half of the in-the-classroom series focused on presenting lessons about the particular classroom artist that was chosen the previous summer. The first "artist" lessons were presented by Diane, the middle lessons were team-taught and the final lessons were carefully pre-planned so the classroom teacher was presenting solo, both with and without Diane in the classroom. Throughout the 2nd and 3rd grade in-the-classroom program, classroom teachers were responsible for keeping a journal of lesson plans prepared to go with each of the art experiences. Samples of work were included in this journal, as were occasional digital photos of processes snapped by Diane. A copy of this final journal will be placed on permanent record in the school library.
DocumentationTo help children synthesize the concepts learned in the classroom experiences, five hallway displays were created to document the learning process and concepts mastered. The first display was created by Diane, to model the important components of sound documentation. As the school year progressed, children became more involved in the documentation in ways that demonstrated their understanding of the work we completed. For example, the art project on kente cloth was accompanied by student writing, as each learner explained: the method of making the cloth, the importance of the cloth in historical times, the importance of kente cloth today and an interpretive description of the cloth they designed, including the name of the pattern they had created. The final documentation displays were about work done in relation to the classroom artist, and children were encouraged to take the lead as much as possible. 
These documentation displays serve many purposes. First, they offer children a chance to revisit the learning experience and reiterate their understanding of the concepts. Secondly, they educate others in the building (students and staff) who stop to interpret the display, both as to the content of the particular display and as to the value of an integrated curriculum. Third, they reinforce to visitors the Kipling School mission - to use arts to facilitate learning in all students. |
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