An Introduction to Arts Propel Page: 4 of 15
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ARTS PROPEL
Clearly, there are several issues that arise when we suggest that
journals and sketchbooks become a part of teaching and assessment. First of
all, it is important to say that journal keeping does not come naturally.
Students have to be given examples, provided with ideas about the range of
things that can be recorded, shown effective ways of recording, and encouraged
to try translating their thoughts to other modalities -- putting down musical
ideas as a diagram, translating reactions to a painting into prose, or
capturing their reactions to a poem in a drawing. In addition, it is essential
that students can keep portions of their notebooks private and that those
requests be respected.
However, once the rationale and the rules for journal-keeping become
shared, the "public" pages of the resulting notebooks often become places
where students and teachers can engage in lively exchanges of ideas. Figure 2,
found at the back of this essay, provides a sample of one such exchange. It
includes a student's initial life drawing of a lilly and the typescript of the
notes the student and teacher exchanged on a nearby page in the journal. The
notes reveal a thoughtful discussion of expression and drawing technique
carefully tuned to the student's rendition of the lilly.
Journals and sketchbooks amplify what we could learn from exercises .
alone. The more daily and spontaneous information in journals provides insight
into aspects of artistic work that remain virtually invisible in imposed.
short-term classroom exercises. Specifically, we hope that journals will
provide a window into students' interest in and reflections on the art they
produce, perform, or perceive. Potentially, journals and sketchbooks will also
offer a more detailed look at the creative process in some students. Where
entries are frequent and students are willing to share them, we might be able
to develop portraits of what is common and what is highly individual in the
development of artistic skills. For instance, we might be able to look at
students who develop ideas over a long period of time as compared to those who
seem to work more by flashes of insight.
But far from being simply an assessment tool, journals may foster
several forms of artistic learning. They may teach students:
- to be alert to experience;
- to value their own experience and to begin to think about themselves as
"actively working in the domain";
- to recognize "collecting" and "simmering" as important phases in
artistic activity;
- to value recording their own ideas;
- to view perception and reflection as parts of artistic learning;
- to try their hand at translating arts experiences across different
modalities: visual knowing into words, narrative ideas into diagrams,Page 4
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Arts Propel Project. An Introduction to Arts Propel, thesis or dissertation, [1989..]; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1050952/m1/4/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.