Literacy being taught through the arts

I was researching articles for a class assignment in multi-modal literacies and came across one by Nancy Witherell, called Promoting Understanding: Teaching Literacy through the Arts.

The first few paragraphs blew me away with a description that has been planted into my brain.

I just want to share these first two paragraphs with you…

The audience was silent. The dancers stopped. Students, through movement and dance, had just illustrated the destruction, debris, and heartache caused by the dropping of the Atomic Bomb. Suddenly, these students, deliberately disorganized, ran to pick up scattered Ping-Pong balls that symbolized the rampant destruction. Thus, through movement and interpretation, they began the difficult process of rectifying a horrible wrong and, through cleaning up the disarray on the floor, symbolizing the initial process of repairing the damage of World War II.

The students achieved three main outcomes in this reenactment of an incredible period in our history: 1) they showed their understanding of the breakup of the atom through their overall movements; 2) they summarized a portion of World War II; and 3) through body movements, they demonstrated their understanding of a period of history no one wants to see repeated.

This also reminded me of a Sand Art presentation done by Kseniya Simonova on a television show called Ukrain's got talent in 2009.

She is an amazing artist who demonstrates the history of her country during World War II.

These methods demonstrate multiple ways to teach others about our history and incorporate feelings that could never be felt or even understood by reading a text.

Article:

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:CvCIVheUUh8J:www.pilambda.org/horizons/v78-4/Witherell.pdf+promoting+understanding:+teaching+literacy+through+the+arts&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiqRHOW_lnlFKxrY1ByKgT5nafQNfwszpMecfd8qyvmYo5O__8yBXgqSfNfNno2KIv7LOQZxrhPRkDw7gyRwGRPwGCsU2wRrUpM0h56gWTNQ1SuYWb_ufZFpjicKDvK1smUiEdW&sig=AHIEtbRKbfMEiIBSfHlMLfny3ot88urQ3A

Kseniya Simonova:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vOhf3OvRXKg