River of Words

This week we're going to explore the website for the nonprofit educational organization, River of Words: Teaching Ecoliteracy Through Poetry and Art. I'm sure that you are aware of the importance of teaching literacy across the curriculum. When we teach across the curriculum, we give students of different cultural backgrounds and learning styles a variety of ways to understand the content we are teaching.

River of Words focuses on the intersections of art, writing and environmental awareness. The literacy emphasis is on poetry, which some children may find less stressful than rule-bound narrative writing. Like art, poetry gives children (and adults) an opportunity to use different parts of the brain. As we know, there are "left brained" and "right brained" people, so we should not be surprised that some of our students will excel in art & poetry but struggle in their other subjects. Arts education (and arts-based approaches to teaching other subjects) is important for this reason: for highly creative, nontraditional learners, the arts are their only reason for staying in school!!! 

I hope you will fully explore the River of Words website and some of the other websites to which it is linked. Here are some questions I'd like you to consider and respond to as your search:

Question #1


At the top of the River of Words webpage, a dark blue horizontal bar helps visitors navigate the sections of the website. Please go to the "What We Do" section and read about "One Square Block." Would you like to do something like "One Square Block" for our next art project in this class? If so, how would you want to document the people, animals, plants, architecture, neighborhoods, weather and/or water sources in the immediate vicinity around Texas Tech University? You could use your cell phones for taking pictures and writing notes, or if you'd rather go low-tech you could use a notebook and pencil. A combination of both would work too. Let me know!

Question #2

In the "Art and Poetry" section, check out the 2010 art winners and select a favorite artwork. Tell us the name of the student-artist, artist's age and grade level, the name of the artwork and the name of the student-artist's teacher. Also mention where the artist is from.

Question #3


In the "Art and Poetry" section, look at the 2010 One Square Block winners. This is a combination of visual art and poetry. Read the poems "My Neighborhood Story" by Alondra Cervantes (age 11, San Francisco, CA) and "I Am..." by Sean FitzHoward (age 14, San Francisco, CA). The first poem describes the poet's home neighborhood in precise, condensed language and a minimum of words. The second poem is a self-portrait in metaphorical language. Using one of these two examples as a guide, try your hand at poetry*.

* You do not have to post your poem if it discloses information you want to keep private. You can email me your poem  or bring it with you to class next Wednesday.

* None of us are poets, and all of us feel self-conscious, so unless your poem reveals something you can't share with others, please post your poem and comment on other's poems that you like.