VTS1: Week 3 Blog Assignment.

Pre-VTS Assessment: 4th Grade students.

What did you notice about your students' written responses?

Most of my students' responses were rather short, with word lengths of: 59, 38, 24, 30, 24, etc. Most of the students appeared to recognize the boat and fish. Most made 2-3 observations about the boat, fish, and weather. Some students would offer 1-2 interpretations/inferences either about the fact that they were in the ocean, what the object in the background was, the weather/storm, and that the man on the edge would die. Occasionally a few students would attempt to explain their evidence, but it was rather redundant to their observation.

EX:

• "Some men are catching fish I see a net with fishes in it they are in a boat and they are in the water."
• "They are little fish the sailors caught. The sailors look like they are putting their boat on the shore. In the background it looks like a volcano." 
• "I think that they're on a boat and there's a big scary storm and if one of them is going to fall and die."
• "Two guys bringing fish out of the net so they get food. There is a net with fish on it. One guy is hanging out of the boat. The one guy looks like there is a shark coming." 

Did you recognize kinds of thinking discussed by Yenawine? Explain.
I recognized students making simple observations such as "There is a net with fish on it." But I noticed my students making a lot of inferen
ces on their own.
"They are going to cook the fish in a pot." "The man is going to die." "There is a shark coming." "There is a big scary storm." I'm not sure that some of these would be considered speculations, as the students appeared to just make the direct inference without any clarification as to "I think" or "Possibly."

Reflecting upon Housen's descriptions of Stage 1 & 2 viewers, did you recognize characteristic responses/thinking in these pre-assessments?
Yes! I think my students are mainly still Stage 1 Viewers. They made simple, concrete observations about the boat and fish. Some observations appeared imaginative, especially about the object in the background. My students were especially, "Incorporat[ing] people and objects into an idiosyncratic narrative." Some emotions colored the comments about the sense of something "scary" whether it was the storm, a shark, or the person about to fall off of the boat.

I didn't see much Stage 2 thinking yet, as students were looking at a fairly realistic image and not acknowledging much intent by the artist yet. Nor were our observations very detailed or linked to our own experiences.

Were you surprised by anything in the students' writing?
I was so surprised by the amount of inferences my students were making! I was expecting to get back a list of students writing " I see two men, a boat, and fish." What's encouraging is that the students seem to be making inferences about the content of the image, adding a storyline to it. About what would happen to the men, why they were fishing, why the water was rough, what was the object in the foreground. This makes me excited/hopeful that the permission to wonder will really be appreciated/utilized by my students, and that they will understand art is about something.