Watercolors Awash in Crayoned Responses: Teaching Narrative in Arts-based Praxis

Abstract

I work in literacy education, encouraging teacher candidates to experiment with the arts to make a novel come alive for adolescent readers. Part of my research agenda, which is intertwined with my teaching, seeks to make sense of the question: What are the effects of arts-based learning on the teacher candidates' theoretical and classroom practices? To first consider the above research question from my own pedagogical perspective, I draw on my earlier recollections (Adler, 1958) of arts and classroom living using the methodology of narrative inquiry-the study of the ways humans experience the world via the construction and reconstruction of their own stories (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990 the effects of arts-based learning on the teacher candidates' theoretical and classroom practices. A more informed construction of our recurring narratives, rekindled by the illumination of early recollections, will play an integral role. Water colors awash in crayoned responses: Teaching narrative in arts-based praxisI work in literacy education, preparing teacher candidates to teach language arts to students in grades 7-10. Making generous use of content areas and the multiple sign systems that they offer, I strive, as Noddings (1984) advocates, to lay out education "along the entire range of human experience so that students may make multiple and potentially meaningful contact with it" (p. 191). The words of math counter our poetic expressions. (Jersild, 1955;Laird, 1988;Leggo, 1995) that emphasizes the critical role that teachers' storied pasts play in the reconstruction of their pedagogical presents. In particular, Dinkelman (2003) states that "self study by teacher educators...promotes reflective teaching by the very example it sets" (p. 11).Therefore, before asking teacher candidates to weave the threads of their own recurring narratives into the discourse of arts-based praxis, I heed Connelly and Clandinin ( The memory of narrative inquiryThe valuable interdisciplinary contributions of Alfred Adler's precursory postmodern theory can be seen in the work of such individuals as Glasser, Rogers, Ellis, Frankl, Maslow and Hawes (Mosak, 1995;Watts, 1998; Watts & Pietrzak, 2000). Education, however, was always a primary focus of his work (Grey, 1954). One of his first and most important works, which focused on child guidance and education, is entitled Physician as Educator (Cosner, 2007). In particular, Adlerian theory, which underscores the integral role of holism or unity in understanding life stories (Adler, 1927(Adler, ,1930 tells us that memory is a creative enterprise, a metaphorical composition of personal meaning patterned from the interpretive selections of living perceptions-"an encoded narrative of the present" (Hestor, 2004, p. 340 (Ansbacher, 1947;Verger & Camp, 1970). Presently, I turn an Adlerian lens on my narrative to better prepare me to work collaboratively with teacher candidates on their narratives in our multi-layered journeys of arts-based praxis. Recollecting narrative presentIn Adlerian practic...

Visual Literacies: An Ecology Arts-based Pedagogical Model

“…The ability to imagine a better world, an alternative to how systems of oppression currently operate, an illumination that reconceptualises current ways of being-that is what engagement with multiliteracies ultimately strives for. Morawski (2008) remarks, "Maxine Greene (1991 challenges us that 'the arts offer opportunities for perspective, for perceiving alternate ways of transcending and being in the world'" (p. 9). The New London Group calls for civic pluralism, which argues for citizens of diverse backgrounds to find meaningful ways to engage with one another and proposes that people need to "have the chance to expand their cultural and linguistic repertoires so that they can access a broader range of cultural and institutional resources" (1996, p. 15).…”

“…The two main premises of their arguments were (a) to consider the role in a global society of shifting and hybrid versions of linguistic and cultural diversity, which challenge the notion of a standard norm for any language, thus taking into account "our culturally and linguistically diverse and increasingly globalised societies" (p. 9); and (b) to explore the implications of technology, media, and multimodalities as part of what constitutes literacies (Cope & Kalantzis, New London Group, 2000). As Lo Bianco and Freebody (New London Group, 2000;1996) put it, The Multiliteracies Project aims to develop a pluralistic educational response to trends in the economic, civic and personal spheres of life which impact on meaning-making and therefore on literacy. These changes call for a new foundational literacy which imparts the ability to understand increasingly complex language and literacy codes; the ability to use the multiple modes in which those codes are transmitted and put to use; and the capacity to understand and generate the rich and more elaborate meanings they convey.…”

Through a Stereoscopic Viewer: Transient Moments in Remembered Thyme

“…I find myself continually compelled by the need to make sense of my life in language/arts. The parts that specific recollections play in the enactment of my teaching already exist in the pages of academic sites (Morawski, 2008(Morawski, , 2009(Morawski, , 2010Morawski & Palulis 2009). The piece that follows adds to these narrations.…”

“…To introduce a stanza on falling leaves, I reach for words smuggled in a wrinkled sleeve. O'Reilly-Scanlon ( 2002 from the mind and body to the page: Sometimes with structure and explanation (Morawski, 2008Morawski & Palulis, 2009, while at other times with the simplicity of performance (Morawski, 2009(Morawski, , 2010; each time that I enter a memory, the ensuing changes in my narrative shifts to enlighten and revise my teaching practice in the present. Just as Cisneros (2007) said about what she would do at the end of her writing on Mango Street, I will now go away to come back, back where memories loom and hide, waiting to enter and once again revise my recurring narrative of teaching.…”