An Ethnographic Study of Poetic Responses to Art in a High School ESL Classroom

• In Event: Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: Youth, Arts, and Identity

Abstract

This paper will present the results of the first year of a two-year ethnographic study of collaboration between a high school English Language Arts teacher whose students are ELLs and an English Education Professor who is also a poet. The two educators developed and taught a unit of study involving the students engaging with works of art by Frida Kahlo, Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden and others and reading literature including To Kill a Mockingbird. The students responded to this work with poems and artwork of their own. We will share some of the students’ writing and artwork and discuss the impact this project has had upon the students’ academic performance as well as their sense of self.

Authors

• Amanda Nicole Gulla, Lehman College - CUNY

• Molly Sherman, Kingsbridge International High School