VTS II Blog Topic 7

                                              

Robert Capa, Running for shelter during an air raid Bilbau, May 1937

Image Number 3

My students have grown to accept the VTS experience as a regular part of what we do in the art room. They settle into place quickly, and despite the fact that this target class is almost ten students larger than my last one, nearly every student contributes. 

 The meaning of the Garza piece, my first, was more familiar, more easily interpreted. I believe this photograph is more complex, there are viewer details, less density of content.

 Students pondered  the time period, the setting, the place, the mood, and the event. 

My first image was a painting which did not give many clues about a time period. This image, a black and white photograph definitely alludes to a different time in history.

My students enjoy VTS, there are always hands in the air at the end of the session. Photographs always seem to create added enthusiasm. Perhaps it is as Yenawine suggest, they are easy to enter and especially accessible.  I was pleasantly surprised just how close students came to the ‘truth’ of this photograph. They realized that this was probably a city in a different country, during a different time period. They commented on a sense of urgency, a feeling of unhappiness.

We’re not really into the art production phase of this unit yet, but students have a clear understanding that art can communicate a story and that the relief tile they create will be telling a story.

Since beginning this unit I believe that my students are listening more closely to one another. They have learned that it is acceptable to scaffold their thoughts  and likewise, that it is acceptable to respectfully disagree. They are beginning to substantiate their opinions with evidence without my prompting.