Kennedy Center Teaching Artist: Melanie Layne

On April 14th, twenty students sat in a circle on the floor of their classroom with teaching artist Melanie Layne as she began an in-class demonstration.

“Today we are going to look, think and talk about portraits,” she told the first graders as she created a gesture for each of the needed skills. She laid out dozens of portraits for the students to see. Soon they were engaged with their partner discussing all of the things that they could see in a portrait or a photograph of a person or a group of people. Their task was to talk about what was similar and what was different in the portraits they observed.

What could a first grader notice? You’d be amazed! Melanie wrote down all the things she heard in the sixty seconds allotted for discussion on the smart board. All these things were then discussed as a group, and Melanie taught the students the most important things to always look for in a portrait. Soon they were playing "Pass the Portrait" and quickly pointing out to their partner all the things they noticed. Students soon realized that there were many things they could learn about a person from learning to see the many pieces of information contained in visual art.

The in-class demonstration was part of residency instruction for teachers conducted by the visiting Kennedy Center teaching artist as part of Lafayette School Corporation/ Purdue Convocations’ participation in the Kennedy Center’s Partners in Education program. Over two days Melanie visited four classrooms twice so she could take the students further into the instruction which eventually connects to reading and writing.

Her work also included a three-hour long professional development workshop where teachers learned the theories and practices behind the demonstrated techniques. The method touched upon many parts of learning – visual and oral learning and exploration, attention to detail, interactive participation, and vocabulary to name a few. Teachers were able to see connections to many subject areas such as reading, writing social studies, music, art and biography as well as how this type of learning also naturally lead to assessment of students’ comprehension of the material.

Most participating teachers were from Edgelea Elementary where some curricular integration techniques are being adapted as a common format among their classrooms. The continuity of a common language used by teachers in discussing discipline and teamwork has helped create a larger sense of community within the school. Kennedy Center teaching artists help teachers explore methods of 21st Century learning techniques that lead to meeting multiple objectives in curricular instruction.

Laura Clavio, assistant director of Purdue Conovcations