Top Ten Kit: K-W-L Chart. And an art lesson.

I love organizing information. When I saw this neat little process introduced in Chapter 6 of When Kids Can't Read (p. 80; yeah, I've been reading ahead), I immediately saw how versatile and multi-disciplinary this technique can be.

Essentially this chart allows you to build a web of information through class discussion. It is divided into three categories:

• What I Know
• What I Want to know 
• What I Learned 

Using this technique is based on the understanding that active readers use prior knowledge in order to make sense of new material. They will engage with a new book or resource before even turning to the first chapter and anticipate what they are likely to find. These kind of techniques do make one more receptive to new information, because you are building it on knowledge that is already firmly established.

Of course I saw this as a great activity for an art class. Let's say I was beginning a  new unit on Greek and Roman art. Students will have already developed a schema of what that is: marble statues, contrapposto, buildings with columns, Pompeii, Parthenon, pottery with figures. I appreciate a teaching strategy that acknowledges that students are coming into a classroom with prior knowledge. Also, this is a very student-oriented strategy. Someone may have heard "Greek and Roman statues of the late-classical period are presented in a natural, contrapposto pose," but that student may ask, "I know what it looks like, but what does 'contrapposto' mean? How do you make a figure look that way? What is the body doing when you shift your weight to one leg?" Good question! We can build a lesson plan on basic figure drawing just on that. Kids may be interested in that more than, say, a mosaic project.

Actually, most of what we know of Greek statues comes from Romans. This is a Roman copy of a Greek original. The Greeks didn't carve in marble; their statues were cast in bronze.

An art class lends another dimension of the learning process because we learn a lot by doing. My understanding of "contrapposto" was not learned out of a book. It was learned by studying the body, repeated drawing of it, and continuously fixing mistakes. And you notice the shift, when a live model finally stops standing so rigidly. All their weight shifts onto one leg, therefor the pelvis is tilted up on that weight-bearing side and to compensate for the imbalance, the upper torso and shoulders are tilted in the opposite direction. It's really strange and remarkable, how we can always manage to stand so much of ourselves on tiny little feet and not fall over on a constant basis. But there's a real science to it that has everything to do with the mechanics of balance and weight distribution.

An anatomy study of Michelangelo's David. Stand in this pose for a second. It's very easy. Now, raise your right shoulder. Feels a little lopsided, huh?

The biggest obstacle with this chart is getting kids to ask questions, which is essential to active learning. "Why are there three orders of Greek building? Why not five? Did they (ancient Greeks?) deviate from any of those prescribed orders? How are we still using these building techniques and styles? Do we still use them to communicate the purpose of the structure? In what ways?" It's always good to remember that questions arise out of what we already know. As a teacher, I am mindful that in order to get students talking, it's always best to bring up a subject they are familiar with. Chances are, they haven't mastered it.