Painting Poetry

A little while back, I had the opportunity to co-design and co-teach a week long course at a local charter school.  My co-teacher and I decided to teach a class about art and poetry, with the enduring understanding that you can interpret things in many, many ways. 

Students worked on a number of projects including a cut-out word poem, making art inspired by famous poems, and making a poem inspired by a famous piece of art.  The unit culminated in a "gallery opening" during which students presented an original poem and an interrelated original part piece.

I was amazed at the insights these students had!  The art and poems they created were terrific, and the whole unit was a blast. 

I felt like the lesson really came through one day when I was instructing the students to make a piece of art inspired by a poem.  One student said to me, "but how can you make a piece of art inspired by the poem when the poem is already a form of art?"  (A fifth grader, friends!)  Well said!  Art can be poetry and poetry can be art!