Mar'ce Merrell

It was terrific seeing so many familiar faces at the Teacher’s Convention on Thursday and Friday. The organization I was assisting with, Learning Through the Arts, had great response although it is virtually unknown in Northern Alberta. I think over the next five years that will change as schools experience the value in integrating artists within the core curriculum.

I also met a number of artists working with other programs, (primarily theatre groups), who are part of the Artists in Education roster compiled by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

In talking with teachers one theme seemed consistent, sometimes an artist in residence is a good investment, sometimes it doesn’t work out so well.

It seems these are your options as a school booking an artist in residence:

1. A performing group: It may be less risky to bring in a group of performers than to have an individual artist work in classrooms, because a well-formed system is in place. Your students, then, work within the system. Very little one-on-one instruction happens, but the group dynamic is explored.

2. An individual artist in residence. This, to me, can be a great option for instruction of a particular art form. If the artist-educator is experienced in classroom management and has deconstructed their art form to a level that is appropriate for the age and stage of each learner, this can be a wonderful learning experience. My best experiences as an artist in residence have been in classrooms where the teachers are engaged and supportive of the artistic process. The success of an artist in residence hinges on many factors- the attitude of the teacher, the experience of the artist, the artist’s confidence with the material and the students, and the students interest in the activities that are being explored.

3. The third option, now, is Learning Through the Arts which takes some of the risk out of individual artists in a school. With LTTA, the school chooses several art forms (and artist educators) to work in their classrooms. The artist educators are trained in creating lesson plans that combine the art form with core curriculum concepts and the artists are mentored by more senior artists throughout their terms in schools. (They also provide training in classroom management techniques!) If a school is unhappy with a match, an artist can be substituted. As an artist, the LTTA model provides a unique creative challenge and a revenue stream that doesn’t require a commitment of a week or two weeks of full-time work.

What I know for sure is that every option has advantages and disadvantages and the success of an artist in the school often has a whole lot to do with factors that can arise from the school or the artist.

My suggestion is that a school carefully look at the make-up of its staff members and their attitudes towards sharing their classroom with a guest artist. Decision making should involve a group of staff members. Residency objectives should align with the values of the school. And decision-makers should carefully consider an artist’s commitment to their art form (is the artist currently actively engaged with the art form?) and the artist’s experience (has the artist had training or enough experience in the classroom that poor classroom management will not detract from the art experience?). How will student learning regarding this art form be assessed? Will students have had enough time with the artist to incorporate the lessons they’ve learned? Schools should also ask- How will we be able to extend this experience? Will the school create an anthology of student writing? Will it create a video of small group drama that has been created after the residence is completed? I think it’s essential to consider the impact a residency will have the student and parent community after its conclusion.

We have a month prior to the Artist in Residence, Alberta for the Arts, grant deadline. If you’d like assistance in pulling together a Learning Through the Arts grant proposal or would like to talk to me about an Artist in Residence program, I’d be happy to talk to you.

I’m off to the Greater Edmonton Teacher’s Convention tomorrow and Friday, Feb. 25 and 26. I’ll be representing Learning Through The Arts in the trade show. If you’d like to sign-up for a free in-class demonstration of integrating the arts and core curriculum with one of our fine artists, see me or my compadre Greg Mann at the LTTA booth. New this year is the potential funding of LTTA programs through the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Artists in Education program. We’ll be helping schools to identify the art forms they’d like to use in the classroom and providing support in writing grant applications. Teachers, it would be great to see you there! Mar’ce

Tomorrow is my last day at Jackson Heights Elementary, a school I will remember for its enthusiastic students and my struggle to pronounce their names correctly. It has been great fun for the students to hear my Indiana-born phonetics and cadence butchering the Indian names of Napinder and Saan.

We’ve worked to encourage voice in the student’s writing while I’ve been here. Drama has been our window into the world of creative stories with voice. In Division I our retellings of the Three Goats Gruff had teenager penguins that wore cool black sunglasses and liked to hip-hop dance! In Division II we used drama to play with ideas that became the basis for short stories about characters encountering animals that have escaped from the zoo.

I had this great epiphany today as I was explaining that including character thoughts in writing adds VOICE to the writing.

“Here, what if you think about that voice in your head that warns you or gives you witty things to say that you know it’s not appropriate to say? That’s your VOICE. It is a symptom and indication of your personality. Include the voices in your character’s heads in your writing and you’ll certainly increase the voice!”

I thought it was brilliant. I’ve been thrilled to hear the student’s writing. Oh…we also created videos of some of their drama. Kids mostly love to see themselves on the big screen!

Thanks, Jackson Heights for such a wonderful visit!

It’s terrific working with the grades 4, 5 and 6 classes and Mr. Chichak and Mr. Turlione. We’re working with the Learning Through the Arts model of teaching and that means we’re combining an art form and a core subject area.

What does it look like? Groups of students will be making commercials to “sell” their glider (paper airplane) or Mixture Separation Device (various techniques to separate the specific elements in birdseed).

Clearly we’re coupling Science concepts with drama/language arts. The students will be creating scripts, asking scientific questions as well as the questions writers ask before developing a commercial that they will work as a team to build and film.

I’ll show a clip of a commercial on February 5, the day after our final day of shooting!

If you’re interested in knowing more about the LTTA model or about an artist in residence program, send me an e-mail and I’ll fill you in.

Mar’ce

I bought this coconut. I wasn’t sure, exactly, what I’d do with it. I’d never in fact bought a coconut before- at least not in North America. I think I bought it because I wanted a shift in my every day. I looked for recipes of how to use fresh coconut. And I discovered through experimentation that fresh grated coconut tastes better after it’s cooked than before and that you can replace just about any dried unsweetened coconut with fresh. My blog here or here has the results of my cupcake recipe.

I also thought of the people in Haiti, not that I’ve been there, but I spent two months in Southeast Asia and the poverty I witnessed in Cambodia came back to me in pictures and smells and coconuts. I am saddened by the devastation, but I don’t think those words are enough. Just like I haven’t been able to adequately express the experience of traveling in Asia for two months, I cannot express my heartache over Haitian’s heart break.

I’m working on revisions of The Cake Princess, feeling vulnerable the way my characters do- that’s my news. I guess the coconut was a diversion down a familiar path of thought.

I take my camera everywhere with me. It’s a habit I started when I got my first job as a journalist for a daily newspaper in Ohio. Back then, we used film cameras and we had to adjust the fstop manually. Oh, and focus. My first months on the job, my photos were awful! Washed out. Dark. Out of focus. Badly framed. Eventually I learned. Now, my point and shoot makes picture taking easier. My son is trying to convince me to go back to the film camera’s version of figuring it out on your own. I consider it, but then an opportunity for a beautiful sunset from the car, (as I’m driving! Yikes!), comes along and I wouldn’t give up my automatic. It was a beautiful night!

I spent last Friday in Vermilion, hosted by the Buffalo Trails Public School Board. My session on The Reading and Writing Connection focused on helping teachers connect the text in their classroom resources with writing exercises that would improve their student’s literacy. I became very fond of my teacher participants; they were engaging and their ideas were interesting and funny. I think that’s because teachers are FUNNY! I don’t know if they know it, but I think they are very funny. Perhaps, like writers, their amount of face-time with adults is limited to recess, lunch time and meetings outside the parameters of their primary work environment. They are a surprisingly sane group of people when you consider the requirements of their profession. This, too, is similar to the day to day of a writer. Now, back to my cup of tea and my brainstorming.

In a few days of caffeine flurry, I made my way, mostly on foot, around Toronto.

Favourite meal: Spice Route on King Street.

Favourite run: Through the park near my niece’s place at Farnham and Avenue Road.

Favourite building: The inside of the Royal Conservatory of Music.

Favourite famous person sighting: Camilla and Charles.

I attended Packaging Your Imagination, a CANSCAIP sponsored conference, at the University of Toronto. My favourite speakers were Teresa Toten and Shane Peacock and the keynote presenter Kenneth Oppel. While the conference is geared primarily to the beginning author/illustrator, I went to further my understanding of author presentations/workshops. Power point or not. Audience participation or not. Not only did I gain what I went for, but I made new friends. Hello Maurizio and Stephanie and Janet.

I’m looking forward to integrating what I’ve learned into my presentations as an author. While in Toronto, I also spent at day with Learning Through the Arts. More on that later. (It deserves its own space!)

An inspiring place for writers.

I’ve spent the last three weeks in Banff at work on a novel for adults, Bitumen. This is a great place to problem solve. Long walks in the mountains seem to smooth the connective tissue between one idea and the next. I’ve added 50 pages to my novel since I’ve been here. I’m staying in one the Leighton Studios, an architecturally interesting cabin in the woods, where the only sound or distractions are the ones I create. Here’s more on the Banff Centre’s Leighton Studios.

September sends me into schools all over Alberta and Canada to present workhops on my writing and how writers craft scenes.

In one hilarous, student-engaging, drama exercise, (I call it Stranger Than Fiction), the students take over as the tools of fiction: character description, setting description, character thought and dialogue. A student director propels the students through a scene where the unexplained can, and often does, happen.

My workshops are about discovering the playfulness of a writing career, understanding why writers write, and transmitting energy and enthusiasm about writing and reading.

September 16: Vegreville. I’ll be presenting The Cake Princess (short story from Cleavage) to grades 7 to 9 classes.