Many concepts I have learned in college are being applied in the classroom in which I intern. One such concept is poetry analysis. The students have learned how to analyze a poem’s rhythm, meter, and rhyme, as well as a number of literary devices including metaphor,
synecdoche, and metonymy. This was most recently applied to the Romantic poets including Percy Shelley and John Keats. Students worked in groups to analyze a specific poem and present their work to the rest of the class.
Another concept that we use in the classroom is formal analysis of art. We study the technique used by artists to understand what is compositionally important. Concepts such as foreground, background, lighting techniques, atmospheric perspective, and scaling are all examined. The formal analysis is important because it strengthens the contextual analysis of the work.
This is another theory that we apply to studied works of art within the classroom. Contextual analysis examines the meaning of the work, what the artist is saying, and how it is being said. This includes the symbolisms, metaphors, and other techniques that indicate the purpose of the painting. We are now in Baroque art, working to understand artists such as Caravaggio, and how his compositions utilize these techniques to add greater richness to something that is more than just a beautiful picture.
Hermeneutics is also a concept that is lightly used within the classroom. Hermeneutics is an interpretive theory that analyzes written texts, most commonly religious texts. During the world religion chapters of the humanities class, the teacher attempted to present this idea, though it is difficult at the high school level if attempting to avoid ideological arguments and angry parents claiming heresy. However, she did encourage students to examine the world religions as metaphorical stories we often call myths. By doing this, the students can approach the religions of the world with an open mind, learn something new, and see that they are no more different from each other than mere word substitutions and semantics. Again, this is difficult at the high school level because ideologically firm parents find it difficult to cope with the mere presentation of other religions to their children.
Week 5 has been great. I’m starting to see the individual personalities of the students, and to understand how they will sway discussion. Have a good week.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Week 4
The Humanities classroom is more of a multidisciplinary program; however, the teacher does strive to bring an interdisciplinary approach to her teaching.
It is multidisciplinary in that the students often learn about innovations in various disciplines that all relate to the same era of history. For example, we just finished reading the Shakespeare play Much Ado About Nothing after studying artists such as da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo, and poets like Keats and Shelly. Though many disciplines are taught, this is done separately. They are grouped by the historic era in which they occur. We will be moving on to the Baroque period now, and artists such as Caravaggio will be studied, then we will learn about philosophers like Descartes. In this sense it is a multidisciplinary classroom.
However, the teacher is doing a great job of trying to work through the curriculum with a sense of interdisciplinarity. This is done by examining the motifs of progress that occur within each of the disciplines studied, and how that ties to the changes within the others. We find common ground between all the disciplines in the idea of progress. Therefore, by studying the progress in all the disciplines of the era, we can see how the western world has changed socially and culturally.
The disciplines taught are clearly outlined by the teacher. Today may be architecture, tomorrow music, and the next day may be religion. They are taught as distinct disciplines whose boundaries are crossed only after a thorough examination of two or more.
The structure of the classroom is definitely hierarchical. The teacher is the head and the students do as she says. I fall somewhere between the two. And of course the school is hierarchically arranged. In this case, the teacher near the bottom of the pyramid, with me and her students rounding out the list.
It is multidisciplinary in that the students often learn about innovations in various disciplines that all relate to the same era of history. For example, we just finished reading the Shakespeare play Much Ado About Nothing after studying artists such as da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo, and poets like Keats and Shelly. Though many disciplines are taught, this is done separately. They are grouped by the historic era in which they occur. We will be moving on to the Baroque period now, and artists such as Caravaggio will be studied, then we will learn about philosophers like Descartes. In this sense it is a multidisciplinary classroom.
However, the teacher is doing a great job of trying to work through the curriculum with a sense of interdisciplinarity. This is done by examining the motifs of progress that occur within each of the disciplines studied, and how that ties to the changes within the others. We find common ground between all the disciplines in the idea of progress. Therefore, by studying the progress in all the disciplines of the era, we can see how the western world has changed socially and culturally.
The disciplines taught are clearly outlined by the teacher. Today may be architecture, tomorrow music, and the next day may be religion. They are taught as distinct disciplines whose boundaries are crossed only after a thorough examination of two or more.
The structure of the classroom is definitely hierarchical. The teacher is the head and the students do as she says. I fall somewhere between the two. And of course the school is hierarchically arranged. In this case, the teacher near the bottom of the pyramid, with me and her students rounding out the list.
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