Making Connections: Readings Takeaways

 Making Connections: Readings Takeaways

Mary Jane Zander, Tell Me a Story: The Power of Narrative in the Practice of Teaching Art

From Zander’s text, I realized that teaching art involves listening to how students speak about their work, rather than correcting how the work should look. This idea connects closely to my own studio practice. Much of my work moves between abstraction and surrealism, and meaning often comes through my explanations, observations, and decisions rather than a fixed image. The story I tell about the work shapes how it is understood. As a teacher, this reinforces the value of attending to how students describe their intentions, processes, and discoveries. Responding to meaning supports students whose thinking develops through making and reflection, not through polished outcomes.

Digital Storytelling in the Elementary Classroom. Youtube Video, 5 min. June 13, 2011, Oregon Writing Project at University of Oregon.

Watching this video made me reflect on how important it is for children to have access to multiple ways of communication. I believe exposure to multimedia helps students realize that expression does not need to rely on writing alone. Some ideas come through images, some through sound, and some through voice. Digital storytelling allows students to experiment, revise, and make decisions without fear of doing something wrong. I noticed how confident the students sounded when describing their choices. They talked about what they liked, what they changed, and how they wanted their story to feel. This made me realize that multimedia supports student agency and helps students find forms of expression that match how they think and feel.

Kylie Peppler, Opportunities for Interest-Driven Arts Learning in a Digital Age

From Peppler’s work, I understood that learning strengthens through participation, peer connection, and sharing work with others. This relates to my studio practice because my work develops through dialogue, comparison, and response. Seeing how others interpret abstract or surreal elements often reshapes how I understand my own work. Exchange becomes part of the process. In teaching, this supports creating spaces where students share work, talk through decisions, and learn from each other’s perspectives. The audience does not need to be large. Peer viewing and conversation already create meaningful engagement and deepen understanding.

TEDx Talk. Emily Bailin, 2014

What stayed with me most from this talk was how a single question shaped the entire learning experience. “Where I’m from” works less as a prompt for answers and more as a structure for thinking. As the story moved across voice, image, and sound, meaning did not unfold in a linear way. It became more layered. I noticed that adding visuals and voice did not explain the poem, but shifted how it was felt and understood. This made me reflect on how learning can begin with uncertainty rather than clarity. Allowing students to stay with complexity, contradiction, and unfinished meaning opens space for deeper reflection. Storytelling here focuses on holding multiple truths at once rather than reaching resolution.