Pre-VTS Assessments Class: Intro to Art (grades 9-12)
- I noticed that although the students were given a lot of space to write/ lines to write on, their responses as a whole were not very lengthy. Most students only pointed out visual characteristics of what was in the photograph, and very few students attempted to find a deeper meaning. A lot of students simply described an inventory of what they saw, and there was very little elaboration on the second question (what do you see that makes you say that?). Some inferences were made about the man's occupation and mood. A few students did use conditional language.
A few students writing samples:
"A chef is posing for a picture in what looks like an older kitchen with a cigarette in his hands and a cup of tea or coffee on a saucer in the other leaning up against the counter."
"A man is taking a break from cooking. He is standing by a stove with pots and pans on it. He is wearing a chef hat as well. He is staring off into space as he is holding a cup of tea. There are cabinets behind him, timers above the stove, and a backsplash as well."
"This picture seems to look like a doctor, most likely a surgeon, drinking a cup of tea. I can tell that with the hat and the face mask thing and the scrubs that he could be a doctor. We can find that maybe he just got done with surgery, and he has had a long day at work."
- The thinking I noticed that Yenawine discussed was that it surrounds a single idea. Making up the single idea, the students have an observation and an inference. Although these thoughts can lead to more complex thinking, they are limited at this time. They have the ability to observe more, but they aren't volunteering any more ideas currently.
- Reflecting upon Housen's descriptions, I believe most of these students are Stage 1 & 2 viewers. In some cases, students made bulleted lists of what they saw...falling into the Stage 1 viewing category. These students made "simple, concrete observations." Other students' writing aligned more with the Stage 2 description...they came up with ideas by referencing them to their knowledge of the world. For example: "generally tea makes you unstressed and by looking at his face, he seems distracted."
- I was surprised that more students didn't go into further detail about the image...especially because of their high school age. I also noticed that a lot of the pre-assessments did not contain very sophisticated writing and sentence structure. I'm curious to see how their pot-assessment will differ.
Whenever I read a pre-VTS assessment post from someone who is working with a group of high school students, the statement "Just because they can, doesn't mean they will" comes to mind in reference to their focus class. I think this comes from several "places." First, writing about an image cold without collaboration with a peer group may curtail investment in the meaning-making experience that is required to really notice deeply. It may also have something to do with the fact that by high school, they are anticipating a right answer and the less they say, the less likely they are to get it "wrong." It would be interesting, after a few VTS discussions with this group, to ask them why they wrote so little. Their answers would be very insightful, I'm sure. The bullet points certainly demonstrate list-making and Stage 1 for that student. I also ove the reasoning about the effects of tea and the stress/distraction in the man's face. Thanks for providing that example! I was REALLY surprised that some respondents saw the man as a chef. I guess because medical professionals today don't wear white, they were confused. White scrubs aren't part of their visual culture! Fascinating!
ReplyDeleteKenzie,
ReplyDeleteI am somewhat surprised to the lack of writing and insight provided by the high school students that you mentioned. Naturally I would have thought they would have provided some inference and evidence as to what might be going on. After reading Mary's comment it reminded me when I worked with high school Spanish students and finding out that they feared being wrong or didn't feel they have permission or an expectation to delve deeper and seemed to do the bare minimum asked. It will be interesting to see the post VTS results.