>>Courtney: A text can sometimes be very intimidating,
especially for a struggling reader, an English language learner.
Art is a universal language.
Every child can read a piece of art.
They're able to give an opinion, they're able to find evidence in that work
because they can read the visual.
It's a place where every child can be successful.
>>Student: Now, it's making sense.
>>Courtney: At Concourse Village Elementary School,
we are a literacy-based school.
We believe that every educator is teaching reading,
so you're learning reading in music, you're learning reading
in physical education, you're learning reading in art.
>>Teacher: You're going to get an artwork that you're going
to have a discussion with your--
>>Courtney: When you're reading a book,
you have words that are communicating the idea.
Artwork is the same concept, except it's visuals
that are communicating that idea.
>>Ivelisse: We're reading the pictures, but not with our mouth.
We're reading it with our eyes.
>>Courtney: So second grade is learning about three different types
of communities, rural, urban, and suburban communities.
>>Each group has your master work that you're looking at with a question.
Our first group is Romare Bearden's The Block. What would it--
>>So there's different literacy strategies, such as making connections,
visualizing, prediction inference, and these are the same strategies
that you can use to read a piece of artwork.
>>Ivelisse: The picture I was asked to look at looks like a suburban community,
a single home and the question was what was the mood,
if it's happy, if it's a sad picture.
That goes with different colors.
>>Courtney: What is the mood of this artwork? Ivelisse?
>>Ivelisse: It would feel calming because the evidence,
for me, was the light tone colors.
>>Courtney: The artist's use of light colors create a happy mood.
>>Thinking of a prediction question, what might it feel
like to be inside this work and why?
>>Provide evidence from the work to support.
>>Sebastian: She told us to look carefully, and then,
think how would it feel like to be in that picture.
I noticed that there's a crowd and they're listening to music.
>>It will feel kind of jammy on that street.
>>Courtney: What do you mean by that?
>>Sebastian: It will feel cool to be on a street with a lot
of music and a lot of people.
>>Courtney: When you go back to your tables today,
you're going to revise your work thinking about these ideas.
>>So after the master work session,
they can apply these literacy ideas to their own work.
What is the mood of my work?
What am I trying to communicate? What's my theme?
>>Sebastian: So we continued our pictures. I was doing the city.
>>Courtney: The sky comes all the way down to the street.
>>Sebastian: Oh. >>Courtney: Remember, horizon line.
>>Sebastian: I could ask myself how I know it's an urban community.
I put a deli store right next to a lot of buildings.
>>Courtney: We need to do our gallery walk and provide our feedback.
>>The same way that we critique master work, we critique each other's work.
>>I hear a lot of oohs and ahs.
>>Sebastian: We went on a gallery walk. You look at your peers' work.
I might ask what is the mood in this picture?
What are you trying to tell me.
>>Courtney: I would like to hear some of the feedback that you received.
>>Ivelisse: I like how she painted.
>>Courtney: Why did you choose to paint the solar panel with glitter?
>>Ivelisse: It would show the electricity.
>>Courtney: That's a really great artistic decision.
>>So because we embed literacy in the arts,
students find these cross-curricular connections.
A lot of the vocabulary transfers over, mood, tone,
atmosphere, prediction, inference.
Art is kind of an entry point for them.
It allows them to really be creative and be critical thinkers.