Mark Dion collection response

assignment prompt:

On your blog I would like you to assemble a group of (3-5) objects (images of objects or images of images) into an organizational system. I would like for you to metaphorically connect your collected system to the question: "what is the object of art education?" Please explain your choices and the reasoning behind your decisions and explain how and why your collection goes together and how they connect to art education.

Next, I would like you to choose one object from someone else's system and bring it into yours. Again explain your reasoning about how it fits into yours and how the new object changes your system.

my response:

Its amazing how much of my understanding comes from misunderstandings.  Case in point, Kathy once quoted this wonderful phrase by G.K. Chesterson in the opening to a presentation: "Art is the signature of man."  The misunderstanding?  Any time I tried to re-quote it I always misquoted.  For some reason I kept repeating it as "art is the punctuation of life."  So as I began thinking about what my collection would be I decided to put these grammatical glyphs to good use.  I don't know if they could quite be considered objects "per se", but I'm going there anyway (which is partly why I hastily illustrated them here).  Here's how I see the connection to the collection and the metaphor.

Artmaking is quotations.

Quotation marks signify qualification of someone speaking.  Artmaking gives us the opportunity to make our ideas (and voice) visible - as well as to quote others.

Artmaking (and artwork) is an exclamation.

Artmaking can be a declaration, a celebration, a battlecry...  Though some works are intimate and speak in subtlety, their are others who refuse to be silent.

Artmaking (and artwork) embodies an artist's statement or evolving position visually - period.

Artmaking (and artwork) is questions.

What is the artist trying to say?  How does this piece add to the conversation of those before it?  What does this work ask of me as a viewer?  Do I agree with this or disagree?  ... the questions continue.

Artmaking (and artwork) is life's comma, the cause for pause.

Creating art forces us to stop and observe the world around us in profoundly different ways.  Viewing art can have the same effect.

Artmaking (and artwork) is parenthetical.

Artists make visual asides.  Sometimes these are to clarify.  Sometimes these are asides which help us reveal more.  Artmaking (and artwork) is both the enclosure and the space to learn more.

Connecting to other's objects:

If I had to choose another object to be a part of my collection I would include Kathryn's diary.  A diary (or sketchbook/journal) is a vessel which is made to hold one's musings - an appropriate form to hold punctuation of all sorts.  Additionally, as Kathryn so eloquently stated, "The diary fits inside the desk and represents our most personal and private views and experiences, which often emerge in our artwork in carefully calculated metaphors and symbols. It holds our emotional responses to the world we live in."  By extension might we consider ourselves or our students as the journal itself - our expression encased within, let out (shared) by untying that which holds us back? 

(or is that too cheesy?) :)

Chapter 3 - Bridgework

Mindwork: Discover What You Know

Consult the bridgework prepwork you did in chapter 1 and, using your now refined topic, do a “brain dump”: list, map, outline, diagram, brainstorm, freewrite.  Form your topic into questions and subquestions:

What sources do I know already that I might consult?

The Pop Culture team teachers (lived experience), Patti Price (experience creating a new course at RBHS), Dr. Belinda Smith (did her dissertation on Lee School and integration), Dr. Roy Fox (media literacy guru)

What people might I ask or contact as resources?

Because I don’t really know Dr. Fox all that well personally (I have yet to take a class with him) I think this is a relationship worth working on and developing. 

Where would I go to find out more?

I need to find more secondary teachers who use cross disciplinary integration outside of our district, preferably with art education, but other disciplines might be suitable as well.

Mindwork: Try a Google-ography

How many options do you have for further, more focused search?

By searching the key terms “secondary art integration” I came across 17,000,000 hits – yowza.  This may be because they search for terms separately.  In terms of things that will work for more focused searching I was pleased to come across more examples of integrated programs.  Unfortunately, many of these were in music or utilized the arts as “guest stars” in the integration process (not TRUE integration).  This is criteria I will have to continually keep in mind as I sort through my results.

What do you know that you didn’t know before?

I ran across a secondary school in Singapore which utilizes arts integration in its HEArts Programme.  I located an abstract for a presentation/paper they did on the topic, but I couldn’t find additional information on the initial search.  It looks like I will have to dig deeper to find information on this particular program.  Here is the abstract:

The HEArts Programme is an innovative curriculum programme integrating History, Geography, English, Art and Music, offered to all Sec 1 and 2 Normal(Academic) and Express pupils in Boon Lay Secondary School (BLSS) since 2005. The curriculum integration uses a thematic approach to learning and developed by the school's teachers from across different disciplines and different levels of teaching experiences. This first paper will provide an introduction to the HEArts programme at Boon Lay Secondary School and update on the implementation of the programme since 2005. An added feature to the programme is the introduction of Literature for Sec 1 in 2006 and for Sec 2 in 2007. The curriculum was also realigned using the Understanding by Design (UbD) approach in 2006. The processes and challenges that the team encountered in developing and implementing the HEArts curriculum will be discussed.

Are there alternative keywords that might help you find more information?

Here are additional combinations I’ve been trying

• Arts integration
• Secondary art integration program
• How to integrate secondary
• High school integration
• Dual credit art class
• High school humanities
• Art and English class
• Art and social studies class

…. And still thinking!

Do you need to consult another electronic source?  Try another search engine?

I’ve found that MU’s summon (the digital database search engine) is extremely helpful.

What would you want to download or print? 

I ran across an article called “Enhancing student learning through arts integration: implications for the Profession” that was published in the High School Journal in 2008 that looks promising.  I’m not sure if MU subscribes to this publication so I am putting it on my list of things to look up.

What experts’ names crop up again and again, and how might your make use of their work?

Unfortunately there are not many repeated names using the google search.  I do know from previous research, however, that Paul Duncum, David Darts, and Kerry Freedman are some of the big names in Visual Culture art education.  I need to look into more giants of the integration world (a good question for Belinda perhaps).

Mindwork: Shape your working Bibliography

View my working bibiliography as a google document here.

Do you need more current articles or books?

I think that my articles are relatively current (the majority are within the last 5 years).  I don’t have many articles from that past year, however, so a search for more current information should definitely be added to the to do list.

Can you eliminate some sources you initially thought were valuable?

This is a definite priority!  I have only read about half of these sources so far so I can’t say with full confidence what is quality and what is not.

Have you included enough different types of materials (book chapters, articles, websites, curriculum units) in your bibliography?  Or are they all part of the same genre?

As of now most of the articles are theoretical or from research (or research-based) publications.  It would be good to see if I could find any existing curriculum models to compare to my writings.

Where do you need to go next?  What do you wish you’d found?

I would really like to locate more examples of integration (specifically at the high school level, and even more specifically with visual art) as exemplars.  Though I’ve dug several times on the surface level I (again) need to dive deeper to see what else I can find.  I think this will be important in determining what has already been done.

Is this a time to revise or refine your research question?  If so, what would it look like?

I don’t think I need to do this just yet, but I may need to depending on the information I glean from reading my research material.

finding questions everywhere

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Chapter 2 - Scratchwork

Mindwork: Explore trial questions

List some possible trial questions.  Do these exploratory questions fit into categories, groups, clusters?  Look for common themes.

My main question overlaps 3 large domains - integration, visual culture, and visual literacy.  I have grouped my questions into preliminary questions (questions I will need to be able to answer before embarking on the research) and research questions (questions to inquire about during the research process).

INTEGRATION

Preliminary questions

• What does successful integration look like at the secondary level?
• What are the barriers that schools have to overcome when implementing effective integrative curriculum at the secondary level?
• How are these barriers overcome?
• What support systems are necessary for effective integration?
• What exemplary secondary art integration models exist?
• What strategies do exemplary programs use?
• What do you seem most interested in?

Potential research questions

• Why is integrated learning beneficial to the 21st century student?
• Does arts integration increase understanding in non-arts disciplines?  How?
• How can the supporting area (Social studies or English) be used to help understanding of the arts, instead of simply reinforcing the concepts of the supporting area?

VISUAL CULTURE

Preliminary questions

• How does one decide what to include and what to exclude in their definition of visual culture? 
• What are the best exemplars or artists to use?
• How is, or has, visual culture been taught?

Potential research questions

• What aspects of visual culture are most interesting and most meaningful to high school students?
• What opportunities for artmaking exist in studying visual culture?

VISUAL LITERACY

Preliminary questions

• What does it mean to be visually literate?
• How does one measure visual literacy?
• What factors influence one’s visual literacy?
• Why is it important for the 21st century student to be visually literate?
• What examples of quality visual literacy strategies integrated into the classroom exist?

Potential research questions

• How visually literate are my students currently?  How does this compare with the population of other students in the school, or schools in the district?  The community?  Their parents? (etc, etc)
• Do opportunities to respond through multiple modalities increase student understanding?
• What barriers do students experience (or teachers encounter) when non-art students are asked to respond to information/learning visually?
• How might students be empowered in helping others become more visually literate?

What resources do you have for answering them?

I have been taking several classes to help address the preliminary questions as a part of my doctoral coursework.  The frustrating thing I keep running into is that the areas I’m interested in aren’t represented by one singular discipline – but several shared disciplines (art, art history, anthropology, communications, journalism (advertising), etc).  Though I think that the multidisciplinary nature of this topic adds resonance (and relevance) to the study, it often makes me feel like I’m pouring water on a mogwai (gremlins reference).

don’t feed them after midnight and never get them wet – or they reproduce and grow into gremlins!

Anyway, I have gathered additional reference material in the form of media literacy texts aimed at a variety of ages/audiences.  The books that are geared towards a college audience have been invaluable references in filling in the “gaps” of my media literacy knowledge.  The books that are aimed towards younger audiences (K-12) serve as excellent examples of potential questions and lessons to address with students.

As I mentioned in my chapter 1 prepwork, I think that both Dr. Fox (media literacy) and Dr. Belinda Smith (integration) would be great resources to consult as well.

What key terms might you further define?

Visual culture, visual literacy, media literacy, multimodal learning, transmediation

Mindwork: Position yourself in relation to the question

Who am I in relation to this idea? How does my position affect the way I approach or understand it?

I think I am well suited to investigate this idea.  I have inherent investment in the topic of visual literacy being an artist and art educator.  I have also been a bit perturbed the last several years with how many times I see English educators “claiming” visuality as a new form of literacy in which they feel best prepared to teach.  Not that I’d be against sharing, but I feel this should be a big wake up call to art educators – as we are truly the experts in this field.  As a sidenote, it irritates me that academia seems to take visual intelligence (or imagery/art production as a way of knowing) more seriously now that we attach the “L word” to it – literacy.

Secondly, I feel that social justice is an essential component of my personal teaching philosophy.  I think that art education is at an essential threshold – one in which we must move ourselves as educators (and our discipline) forward by teaching students to decode their visual world – and not limit it to the canons which visual culture opponents such as Michelle Kamhi deem most appropriate.  Decoding, responding, creating, and making (or re-making) meaning should be an essential part to our 21^st century art curriculum – demystifying and democratizing processes that for two long have been seen by too many as the talents of the few.  We should both honor and empower students by developing their visual voices – in whatever form that may take.

What ethical issues might I raise?

As aforementioned, there are many who disagree with teaching art from a social justice perspective.  One of the largest concerns seems to be that teachers will somehow be indoctrinating their students.  I think just the opposite – effective art educators who teach with a social justice perspective are empowering students NOT to be indoctrinated, but to, instead think and respond both verbally and visually.  Depending on which institutions I work for I will likely have to reiterate this point early and often.

Who will be best served by this study?

I feel this study will positively impact all involved.  Students (especially those who don’t consider themselves “artists”) will be taught how to view the world through more “wide awake” eyes, trained in the methods their visual culture employs to create its messages, and able to respond visually (synthesizing both concept and technique).  If the instruction is team taught I predict that both educators (English & Fine Arts) will learn to integrate and enrich their disciplines simultaneously.  If the study is successful (and why wouldn’t it be? J) I can see it serving as a blueprint for meaningful secondary arts integration at the district, state, and perhaps even national level.

Who might be affected or hurt by it, and how?

Right now I cannot predict anyone being impacted negatively as a direct result of this study.  The only thing I slightly worry about is that students in the regular section of this course (the Pop Culture class that is the English and Studies pairing) may feel that they are missing out.  However, because students will be able to select which course best suits them I don’t see this being a huge problem.  Additionally, thinking long term, if the course takes off this may take enrollment numbers away from the Studies department (which may cause some friction).

What are my hidden biases and assumptions?

Biases:

• I believe that throughout time and cultures artists, as creators, play a key role in the construction of culture.
• I believe the study of Art (including visual culture) is as important as language arts.
• I believe that being visually literate aids in the understanding of the world around you (visual literacy is essential to life in the 21^st century).
• I believe art educators should include forms of visual culture (such as advertising and design) as relevant subjects and products of artistic study.

Assumptions:

• I believe many students will not like art.
• I believe many students will see art as trivial, not a “real” way of knowing.
• I believe some students will fear being assessed on a visual product.
• I believe some students will have problems with open ended assignments, however I believe some students will also likely excel in this environment (and may be thankful because they are not given this opportunity much).
• I believe integration is beneficial to both student and teacher learning.
• I believe students are creators as well as consumers of popular culture.

Could I change my question to avert ethical difficulties, or should I face these difficulties directly?

I don’t think my question has any ethical concerns that cannot be addressed without reasoned explanation of the project.

Mindwork: Refine your question

I thought this was hard to do individually – perhaps we can discuss this in class (p. 31’s questions as for feedback from others).