Episode 503: Visual Literacy: Strategies to Use Across Content Areas

Visual literacy practices can help our students in all subject areas. Join us in conversation with Anne Aurand, an art educator for North Paulding High School to learn more!

TRANSCRIPT

Ashley Mengwasser: Good day educators. Welcome to Classroom Conversations, the platform for Georgia's teachers. I'm Ashley Mengwasser. This podcast is the proud product of a partnership between Georgia Public Broadcasting and the Georgia DOE, the Department of Education. Five seasons into this creative venture. It feels like the right time to share statewide reactions from our educators like you who are on this listening journey with us. Take a listen to this.

Christiana Timothy: I'm Christiana Timothy from Coffee County. I have enjoyed listening to the Classroom Conversations podcast because I get to take away so much that I can then share it with the other leaders in my district and with my classroom teachers. In addition, it's wonderful to hear stories from people in rural Georgia just like me trying new things and watching their students grow and be successful in the classroom. And I think that's what everybody wants is just to know that there is success throughout our wonderful state of Georgia.

Ashley Mengwasser: We definitely want that. Thank you, Christiana Timothy. To share a testimonial about how Classroom Conversations has enriched your instruction, just send us a 30 second sound bite recorded on your smartphone and email it to education@gpb.org. We might just share it on an episode. Now, allow me to paint a mental picture to introduce our episode. In season four, we talked profusely and effusively about literacy in Georgia schools. Reading and interpreting meaning in text. Today we're borrowing that technique from words on a page and practicing it on a canvas or a potter's wheel, catch my draft. If that was a little sketchy, my guest can illustrate our topic much better than I can. The ability to interpret information presented in the form of an image is called visual literacy. To talk about that, I have here a visual artist. My teacher guest is adept at helping students find their artistic voice. 18-year educator, Anne Aurand, teaches art at North Paulding High School, which you'll hear about shortly. Welcome to our show, Anne.

Anne Aurand: Thank you so much for having me.

Ashley Mengwasser: How are you?

Anne Aurand: I'm great. How are you?

Ashley Mengwasser: Is this your first podcast?

Anne Aurand: It is.

Ashley Mengwasser: I'm even better now that it's your first because I love to guide you into uncharted territory. What art classes do you teach, Anne?

Anne Aurand: I teach Visual Comm, which is Intro to Art. It's our very basic level. And then I also teach drawing and painting. They're two separate classes actually, and printmaking and then AP Studio Art.

Ashley Mengwasser: A lot going on over there at North Paulding. And your school is the canvas to which your teaching talents are applied. What is North Paulding High School? Describe it.

Anne Aurand: It is huge.

Ashley Mengwasser: It's huge.

Anne Aurand: It's huge. We're one of the largest schools in the state and definitely the largest in our county. We have over 3000 students and it's just a very diverse population up there.

Ashley Mengwasser: So, do you see all of these students in your class or about what percentage of them?

Anne Aurand: I don't see all of them. We have a very big CTIE and performing arts and also academic electives offerings at our school, so our kids can really find the path they pick. Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's awesome. All right. Who are you as an art teacher and start with your favorite art medium?

Anne Aurand: My favorite medium is probably mixed media just because I can't choose just one. I really enjoy drawing. I love painting, especially with watercolor, but I like manipulating things with Sure pieces to it also. So being able to pull things off of the page really makes my heart go.

Ashley Mengwasser: The 3D.

Anne Aurand: Yeah. So I love mixed media.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah. You have said about yourself as an art teacher that your classes are opinion-based and they're subjective. So high level view without telling us too much about today's topic, what do you mean when you say your classes are subjective?

Anne Aurand: So, art as a whole is very subjective. Is it good? Is it not good? What makes it successful? What doesn't make it successful? So it is very opinion based of what you like and your own preferences. So what I try to get my students to really think about is that it's okay to have an opinion as long as they can support that opinion. Otherwise, why do you think that?

Ashley Mengwasser: You have to back it up. I'm noticing your earrings right now.

Anne Aurand: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: What do your earrings say, Anne?

Anne Aurand: They say, “What would Dolly do?"

Ashley Mengwasser: What would Dolly do? Are you talking about Dolly Parton?

Anne Aurand: Who else?

Ashley Mengwasser: Okay. Tell me about your interest in Dolly.

Anne Aurand: I'm from Tennessee. Everyone from Tennessee, you have to love Dolly.

Ashley Mengwasser: She's the queen of Tennessee.

Anne Aurand: 100%, but she is just such a great role model for everyone. All ages, all races, all nationalities. She's amazing and she's just such a great person to look up to and to model yourself after or your own endeavors. She's just such a great guiding light.

Ashley Mengwasser: Dolly as a doll and she's very idol.

Anne Aurand: 100%.

Ashley Mengwasser: When you're not obsessing about art or Dolly, what are you doing in your spare time?

Anne Aurand: I spend a lot of time with my family. We travel a lot. My husband and I try to make experiences for our kids...

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah, he might take issue with that.

Anne Aurand: Well, it's usually the reverse, but yeah, we want our kids to have an experience-based childhood, and we want them to travel and see the world and see other people and other cultures and just outside of our little bubble.

Ashley Mengwasser: Exactly. That's so immersive of you. What is the favorite trip lately? Is there one you went on recently?

Anne Aurand: A couple of years ago we took a trip to Winter Park, Colorado and we skied for a couple of days. And then we went to San Francisco via the California Zephyr, which is an overnight train.

Ashley Mengwasser: From Colorado?

Anne Aurand: From Colorado.

Ashley Mengwasser: Describe that experience.

Anne Aurand: It was really cool. We had a family sleeper car and so it was quite tiny, but it was one of the bigger locations on the train and so we were all able to sleep in this one little compartment and it was a really neat experience.

Ashley Mengwasser: What was the duration of that trip?

Anne Aurand: Just about 48 hours, it's overnight. And then we flew home from San Francisco after checking that out.

Ashley Mengwasser: Two days in a sleeper car. Your housemates became roommates?

Anne Aurand: Yes, very much.

Ashley Mengwasser: How did that go? They were great?

Anne Aurand: Yeah. Our kids are great travelers. They're awesome. And this spring break we're actually going to be going up to the Pacific Northwest. We've done that trip when they were really little and they again, just great travelers. So we're doing it again with them being a little bit older. And we're actually going to ski and Whistler this time too.

Ashley Mengwasser: That sounds so cool. It sounds like your airplane row is full, but if you ever need a plus one, you know how to find me. These are very creative trips. And when you're not arting or traveling, I know one of the things we talked about on the phone is just the way that we think about things and the way that we show up in the world. And you're big about just discovery in general, and you say that's a part of art. What is a big misconception people have about art?

Anne Aurand: I think a lot of people think that if they can't do it, then it's not necessarily meaningful. And that's the biggest thing is everyone can make art and everyone has an opinion about art. Especially in my visual art, my comp class, the intro level, I get a lot of kids that art is not necessarily their pathway, their passion, it's just a filler class. So I know they're not going to be necessarily artists that make money at that particular endeavor. Yeah, that skill as they get older. But I want them to take away how to be an appreciator of art and eventually be a patron of art. And that's really my goal is to get them to really think about art outside of if you can't do it, then it has no purpose.

Ashley Mengwasser: It's not that you can't art, it's that we all have a place in the realm of art. We just have to figure out what that is. So that's why discovery is so important to you. That makes sense because then we can be a part of art.

Anne Aurand: Absolutely.

Ashley Mengwasser: And you said that we live in a visual world. Explain more about that.

Anne Aurand: We have advertisements. We have social media. There's visual clues and context out there everywhere. There's the fashion industry. There's movies. There's TV shows, but then there's also the fine art world. There's book illustrators. There's so much visual imagery out there that these kids, they just need to be able to find a way to understand all of that and understand their own opinions. They know that they like certain brands or that they like certain artists or that they like certain colors, but they don't necessarily know why or why that works together or how do articulate it.

Ashley Mengwasser: You put the art and articulate in your classes, which we're going to get to right now. Explain to us as we dive into the topic of visual literacy, what it is and why it's important.

Anne Aurand: So, our county, Paulding County, has done a really great job of this overall literacy push and just really trying to pull up literacy scores for our students from a very young age. And it's been a countywide push, and it's been more than just a hoop to jump through. So, to make that more authentic for my students, I really want to tie it back to my class and not just this random thing that we have to do to check off a box. So with visual literacy, it's about teaching them how to critique. How to think about their work or other people's work in the terms of what makes successful or how could it be better, so that they can support those answers. We also have to include some sort of reading component too. So being able to show them that we can still do those literacy strategies that they're doing in ELA classes, and we can bring that into the classroom with the texts that relate to my curriculum. They're going to be those kids that aren't good at ELA, or that's not really their passion, but art is. So that's their hook into these different reading strategies. And then that's their hook into, okay, let's talk about it now. And it really just helps their overall writing if they can understand how to support their opinions.

Ashley Mengwasser: So that's the thrust of all that you're doing. And you said that these techniques can be applied outside of your class too. You said political commentary, music, albums, tell me more.

Anne Aurand: Again, it's that visual world and everyone has an opinion and if they can learn how to support that opinion with contextual evidence, then they can have a political debate with someone. And it's not just I like my person better than your person.

Ashley Mengwasser: Just because.

Anne Aurand: Just because. There's always going to be that why. And if they can learn from my class how they can support their answer with contextual evidence, something that is relatively tangible, then it can take them into pretty much any debate that they're going to have with anyone.

Ashley Mengwasser: Endless applications. It's just about answering that question why? What are some of the actual visual literacy strategies that have been working in your classroom?

Anne Aurand: I do a lot with critiques. Every major project, we have a classroom critique afterwards. And based on the level of my classes, depends on the intricacy of said critiques. So my visual comp classes, we just have what I call scored criticisms and they just have to talk. They have to talk about the work. We put all of their work up on a board and they have to earn 10 points. Five points just comes from putting their work up there, being brave enough whether it's finished or not, just get it up there. And then they have to earn those other five points just by talking, and it has to be related to what we're talking about. So it has to be on point and it has to be, I want to say important, but it has to be something that is going to help that artist get better. So constructive. And if they just repeat what someone else has already said, then they don't really get credit for that unless they're adding on to it.

Ashley Mengwasser: Furthering the conversation.

Anne Aurand: Exactly. So it's pretty easy for them to get those points. And then in my upper level classes, we do the same type of critique. Only they have to write down what people are saying about their art because the next day they do a self-reflection using all of the information that they got the day before.

Ashley Mengwasser: So, theirs has a written self-reflection piece? Okay, great. And the goal from going from spoken to written is what?

Anne Aurand: It's really to take that intimidating factor of talking about other people's work, talking about your own work and really that self-reflection. And then you can see, because we're our own worst critics.

Ashley Mengwasser: Our own worst art critics.

Anne Aurand: Absolutely. So when kids have to reflect on their own, if I have them do it before we do the group critique, then they're going to be really hard on themselves. But if we do it after the group critique, then yes, it can point out things that they already saw, but it will also a lot of times point out things that they didn't see and positive things that they didn't see. So it can help them look at their own work in a new lens.

Ashley Mengwasser: So that self-reflection piece is really for synthesizing what was heard. That's really cool. We have a chance to critique some art today. You're going to take me through an exercise you might do in class. And I am an art novice. I did very poorly in grade school and gave up on art then. But I love talking. So this is what intrigues me when you talk about discovering art and realizing that we can all have an artistic voice even if we are not producers of art. So I'm going to be a consumer of art right now, and I want you to just show me what you have in front of you today, Anne. What is this?

Anne Aurand: Okay. So this is a collage by artist Danielle Chris.

Ashley Mengwasser: Beautiful. I'm going to hold this up for a viewing audience so they can see here. And what medium was this?

Anne Aurand: So, this is collage, and I believe there's also some ink in there too.

Ashley Mengwasser: Collage and ink. So we've taken snippets of things and made them into something tall?

Anne Aurand: Something new. Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah. Let's take a look at that. That is fascinating. How would you guide your students to talk about this? What might you say?

Anne Aurand: So, the very first thing that we're going to do is just describe it. What do you see?

Ashley Mengwasser: I see a blue background which makes the objects on top, and the foreground really pop. I see a woman with her legs crossed reading the newspaper, and I see from where her head would be tree branches that are blooming but also have odd objects in them in the branches. I see some transportation vehicles. I see what I think is a feather. Is that a sea creature? I'm not quite sure. A lot of different odds and ends. And then one of the branches reaches out to the right with a fully blossom that is pink that has two people standing on the petals.

Anne Aurand: So now let's look a little bit closer. What are some other things that you saw in the "tree branches?"

Ashley Mengwasser: The tree branches. I see cars and buses.

Anne Aurand: Okay. Do you see a mouth?

Ashley Mengwasser: No. Help me out, teacher.

Anne Aurand: So right here.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's a mouth. I thought that was a sea creature. This is why I did poorly in art. Okay. So that's a smile with some lips.

Anne Aurand: Interesting.

Ashley Mengwasser: Are we meant to assume these are... Is that an eyeball?

Anne Aurand: It looks like it might be.

Ashley Mengwasser: An eyeball? So maybe these are some facial features that were on the person's head that are now part of the tree.

Anne Aurand: Maybe.

Ashley Mengwasser: Maybe. See this is the thing that's tricky for me about art. I love it. What is the red dot up here? What is this?

Anne Aurand: It looks like a red dot. So what you're getting into now is more of an interpretation. So we're just looking and discovering what we see in here. You see the red dot. What about the newspaper strikes you?

Ashley Mengwasser: Where you would think there are images they appear to be missing?

Anne Aurand: So, we've got some cutout pieces of the newspaper. And then on that flower to the right that you were talking about, the two images, what are those two images? What kind of figures do you think they are?

Ashley Mengwasser: A man and a woman.

Anne Aurand: Okay. So which one do you think is the woman?

Ashley Mengwasser: The one on top, in the yellow.

Anne Aurand: Okay. So the one that's farther away maybe?

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah.

Anne Aurand: Okay. So once we really see all the really small nitty-gritty stuff, then we're going to start asking the whys. Why do you think the artist cut out those pieces from the newspaper? So you thought they were images that were cut out. So why would the artist cut out the pictures to the newspaper?

Ashley Mengwasser: Why would they cut out the pictures? Because the reader's mind is taking the information from the news and having their own mental examination and extrapolation of the images. Like a thought runs away into your own mental picture.

Anne Aurand: Okay. So you just used your hands to say-

Ashley Mengwasser: I did, like the tree.

Anne Aurand: Exactly. And there's no right or wrong answer here, but you're taking that contextual evidence of the images aren't here and it's-

Ashley Mengwasser: But there's branching.

Anne Aurand: But there's these branches and it's coming out of her head, and she is coming up with her own ideas, possibly. Maybe the colorful flower has something to do with really bringing your attention to those figures over there.

Ashley Mengwasser: And that story.

Anne Aurand: Maybe. That's what you want to do is you want to start off with the what do you see first and what do you see even more? And just dive down.

Ashley Mengwasser: Slowly get to the why.

Anne Aurand: And then you get to the why. And there's no right or wrong answer as long as you can support with what you can see here.

Ashley Mengwasser: Visually.

Anne Aurand: Exactly.

Ashley Mengwasser: An explanation for it that would be visually supported. That is so interesting. And this is the kind of thing where if I put this down and I came back to it later, I would find more. What's iterative of this process too. And that's why I think it's so conducive to discussion in your classroom is the other students are adding more and adding more.

Anne Aurand: It's very collaborative too. It lends itself to that collaboration. And it takes away that notion of there is a right or wrong answer like you would get in a math or a science class, and it lets the kids open up and have those wild and crazy ideas as long as they can support it. And sometimes depending on the class makeup, you'll get some kids that'll have this really wild off the charts idea, but then they can support it. And then other kids are like, "Maybe I can come up with something just as wild and creative and divergent thinking." And that's what is really the catalyst for that creativity in the classroom. And they can see it with other artists and they can see it within each other.

Ashley Mengwasser: Like this collage that's really blooming and blossoming, their thinking process to hear their thoughts in comparison and juxtaposition with others, a deeper interpretation emerges. This was really cool. So that's Danielle Chris's collage. We're going to have to share this with the episode so our educators can post it, share it with their class. I'm already stumped for the first time today. That was wonderful. How do your art students respond to learning literacy in art class this way? Are they reticent at first or do they respond willingly?

Anne Aurand: When we come to the critiques and we do visual literacy like this, they're pretty open to it, again because all they hear is there's no right or wrong answer. And they think, "Okay, great." But when we have to the written part of the text that we incorporate every week, because part of our county's literacy push is a weekly thing in writing component to the curriculum, they're really hesitant at first. Because it's why do we have to do reading and writing in here because this is supposed to be fun? One of the strategies that I do is I try to pull text that is related to my curriculum, so there's the Find Your Artistic voice by Lisa Congdon is one of the books that I read with them. And it really helps support what I'm doing over the curriculum in the classroom about letting them explore and discover different mediums and having those choice-based activities. And it really just supports all of that. And then I can incorporate those reading strategies that the ELA teachers are doing too, and it breaks down those walls and the kids are understanding of, "I can do this a little bit better in here because it's a content that I can connect with a little bit better." So that's one of the biggest strategies is trying to find the right content and you can really choose whatever book you want. It can be a book study. It could be articles, but I found for me it was just too taxing to try to find an article every single week. And then once we've run through those weekly strategies of the reading and the supporting what you read with the contextual evidence, then when we get to those visual critiques, it's a lot easier to pull it out of them.

Ashley Mengwasser: That methodology has been practiced, so they've got it down pat. What benefits have you seen from teaching visual literacy this way? How are your students changing?

Anne Aurand: They're definitely a lot more responsive within the critiques and they're starting to use that vocabulary bank a lot more because we're using it in class and then we're using it in our critiques. And then I can also overhear them when they're talking to each other and they don't think I'm listening, but-

Ashley Mengwasser: She's always listening.

Anne Aurand: ... I've got bat ears and I can hear everything and I can hear them have those little conversations in the back of the class and it's, "What do you think I should add here?" And they're starting to, "Well, what are you trying to say? And how will you be able to tell us as the viewer that's what you're trying to say?" So you can tell that they're putting it back into their art as they're having these in-progress critiques with their classmates.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's beautiful. How does the visual literacy stuff that you do impact STEAM activities?

Anne Aurand: So, I went to a workshop a couple of years ago and one of the teachers there had this really cool seminar about the engineering a novel, and it was a STEAM based activity. And I was so intrigued, and I was like, "We've got to see this." So, what she did was she took a novel, she was doing Johnny Tremain, and they would read a little bit each day and then they would do a STEAM-based activity that related to the reading that they did. So I took that back to my classroom and some of my upper-level kids, we decided to do a novel instead of a different book that's like finding your artistic voice and it's just a couple of pages at a time. But we would read a chapter at a time and then they would do an artistic STEAM-based. So it would obviously STEAM with the art and it would tie back to that reading. And what's really important about it is that it teaches them to think divergently. To think outside the box. And with science and technology and engineering and math and art and all of that, what's so important about putting them all together is that creative thinking. And that's what the A does is it makes you have your mathematics mathematicians and you have your scientists and they think very linearly. And then you have your artists and they're all over the place. And those artists and those art-based activities really show the very linear thinkers that you can think outside the box and you can still create something that works and that is imaginative and it just takes it to the Nth level.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah. One of the things that you've said consistently today that I love is divergent thinking, divergent thinkers. That feels like the takeaway for the creativity piece of art is you want them to understand that there is not one right answer. That we can have multitudes upon multitudes. And by integrating STEAM with your visual literacy, you're bringing some of that, like you said, linear thinking back into the class. And STEAM, this is the one time it's okay to STEAM your art because otherwise that will damage it?

Anne Aurand: True.

Ashley Mengwasser: We don't want to STEAM our art. I have a question from an art teacher. Would you like to answer it for us?

Anne Aurand: Sure.

Ashley Mengwasser: Let's play this out.

Cathy Heller: Hello. I'm Cathy Heller. I'm the fine arts lead teacher for Peach County Schools. This is my 25th year teaching art in Georgia. How can visual literacy be used in the fine arts courses to promote both creativity and critical thinking skills?

Ashley Mengwasser: This is exact right point for this question.

Anne Aurand: Visual literacy, again, it's just those steps. Look at what you're seeing, look at what you are trying to answer, and you have the scientific method where let's look at what the problem is first. So the very first thing you have to do is you have to see what you're trying to figure out. So it's going through those steps with the visual literacy. What do you see? Now what more do you see? And then start looking into the why. And with that, why when you were looking at the picture and you were trying to come up with some kind of interpretation, it's okay. There's no wrong answer as long as you can support it. If it's just this wild and crazy idea, then yes, we're getting our creativity going, but we're not connecting it back to the context.

Ashley Mengwasser: The critical thinking piece.

Anne Aurand: So, it's that hand-in-hand operation of let's observe first, let's figure out a why, or figure out an interpretation. And then there's that why component to it. And that's really how you're going to be able to cross so many different platforms.

Ashley Mengwasser: So, it does teach both. It does teach both. You just can't skip steps. And it really is, visual literacy, the ability to read art, and you'll have them reading fine art, commercial art, it doesn't matter what in your classroom. Does it give them confidence to be able to approach, I don't know, maybe something Monet and also something like this and be able to attack it in the same way?

Anne Aurand: I hope so. The ultimate hope is that I'm arming them with these skills that they can go out there and they can incorporate what they've learned from my class into another field, or into some higher level thinking maybe in college or maybe in just some discussion that they're having with some friends late one night and they can change someone's mind. Who knows.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah. Do you have a favorite artist? I haven't asked you this yet.

Anne Aurand: I do really like Danielle Chris.

Ashley Mengwasser: You do?

Anne Aurand: I do.

Ashley Mengwasser: Okay. Thank you for introducing me because this is the first time. Primarily, does she do collage or does she have other?

Anne Aurand: She does mostly collage. She's been involved with Clay lately, so I follow her on Instagram.

Ashley Mengwasser: She's playing around out there.

Anne Aurand: She is. She is the curator of the Jealous Curator podcast or website blog. She is got a pretty interesting story. She's from Canada and she loves Dolly too.

Ashley Mengwasser: So, you have that in common.

Anne Aurand: So, we do.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yes. Okay. Let's move on to looking at ELA integration, which you've teased some for us. How does visual literacy promote ELA integration in art class, and can also be used as art integration in the reverse ELA class? Does that work both ways?

Anne Aurand: I think it can, if you have cooperating teachers. Like I said before, I will probably have kids that are not super excited about art. Just like in ELA, they're going to have some kids that are not super excited about ELA. And if I can still teach them some of those same strategies but in a way that connects with them, then they're going to be hooked a little bit more and they're going to feel more confident when they go into those ELA classes because it's going to be something that they have seen before. They've seen the collaborative teaching strategies. They've seen the different reading strategies that we do in class, and then they do it in their other class and they know the process and it'll just give them that little bit of boost. And the reverse is true. I have some ELA kids in my class that they look at art and they're like, "I don't know how to do this."

Ashley Mengwasser: That was me. Yeah.

Anne Aurand: I give them that day that we're incorporating a lot more ELA into it, and that's when they feel a little bit more confident. And then it's that relationship building too with education. I know you've heard that education is all about relationship and you got to find the kid's currency, and it may be ELA to some kids. It might be math to others. It might be art to a lot in my class, but if I can find something that each of my kids are going to find some place in my class, then it's going to be a good class for them.

Ashley Mengwasser: It's working. And you're teaching them the piece that I've learned from this episode, which is art appreciation is still being a part of art. The discovery piece is so nice, and actually, I realized about a year ago how much I enjoy looking at art, but how very disconnected I felt from it. So when I started traveling and going on trips, I made it a point in my weekend journey to stop by the local city's art museum. And that really changed things for me. And I discovered an artist I really liked, Charles Burchfield, American Pioneer artist, and I just suddenly got all of his art and put it in my dining room and I've never been that person. And there's something about going in with your eyes open and leaving room for connection, and I bet you're really creating that for your students. How can we in our own lives really nurture and cultivate this art appreciation piece? What are some to-dos that you might have for us as individuals?

Anne Aurand: I think it's just that mindset, having the understanding that not everyone is going into a creative industry's profession, but that doesn't mean that they're not connected in some way to some kind of visual world because we are in a visual world.

Ashley Mengwasser: In a visual world as you've taught us.

Anne Aurand: So, it's why did I pick out this sweater to wear today? Why did I buy this album? Why did I buy this bottle of wine? It's the label.

Ashley Mengwasser: It's the label.

Anne Aurand: It's everything around us. Why am I making these choices? And if I can get them in class to think about that, why, then it just becomes this habit and it can extend out of my class. It can extend into other classes. What motivates me? Not just what is my why, but why is this artist doing this? Why is that person doing that? And then you start looking for those contextual things.

Ashley Mengwasser: Those clues.

Anne Aurand: You said you found a favorite artist, why is he your favorite artist? Is it because of this color palette? Is it because of his technique or the materials that he's using? And then it helps look at what motivates you, and then you start looking at other artists too, and then you're just branching off and it just keeps ongoing like a boulder downhill.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yes. Branching off just like this collage here today.

Anne Aurand: Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: What would you consider signs that your students' visual literacy skills are developing smoothly?

Anne Aurand: It's those conversations.

Ashley Mengwasser: It's in the talking.

Anne Aurand: It's even when they're out of my classroom and I can hear them in the hallways, or I have other teachers coming up to me and saying, "We did this in my class today and this kid was talking about this, and this kid was talking about that." And I know that they're my students and that's how I know when it extends outside my classroom and I can see them applying what they've learned in my class to another field. That's the best.

Ashley Mengwasser: A proud moment for you.

Anne Aurand: Absolutely.

Ashley Mengwasser: Your bat ears are working when you hear all those conversations.

Anne Aurand: 100%, yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: I'm going to definitely take away from this episode that we are constantly being visually influenced, and why did I buy that bottle of wine? Why did I choose this outfit today? And think about the ways that we are being influenced and therefore we can influence visually. That's a powerful place to be.

Anne Aurand: Absolutely.

Ashley Mengwasser: Anything else you want to tell us about visual literacy today, Anne?

Anne Aurand: I don't think so. I think that's it.

Ashley Mengwasser: You've done a beautiful job. Thank you for being here today.

Anne Aurand: Thank you so much for having me.

Ashley Mengwasser: Beautiful first podcast, very compelling guest. Please come back.

Anne Aurand: Thanks.

Ashley Mengwasser: When we view, interpret, evaluate, and communicate about art, that as we've learned, is visual literacy. I feel so artsy right now. I'm about to march myself into a museum. Like we've been taught by Anne Aurand, art is an and, or exchange. We can be a part of art by creating it and, or discovering it. It's a visual world for all of us to try out visual literacy. As always, allow me to applaud your personal brand of professional artistry and your classroom, fit for gallery display, you're a great teacher. Thanks for listening and viewing this episode on GPB Education's YouTube channel. That's where you can go and find this collage that we evaluated today in true visual literacy fashion. After you've experienced our work, that's where the communication piece comes in for you. Please share this episode with your colleagues and come back next week for more Classroom Conversations. I'm Ashley. Goodbye for now. Funding for Classroom Conversations is made possible through the School Climate Transformation Grant.