This art text offers another opportunity to use Reciprocal Teaching Strategies. Again the lexical density will be a problem for many of our Year 11 students. Not only are students required to process sophisticated noun groups such as 'unconventional renderings,' 'outrageous imagery' and 'hybrid influences' there is the whole history of European art rolled up in the text. There is a reference to many famous artists. A Google search should help students develop an understanding of various art movements such as Realism and Cubism but it is less likely to explain the controversy and vitriol which raged during this period of art history. Loaded terms such as 'high and low sources' carry immense cultural baggage along with such art history terms as Orientalism and Surrealism.
Karen Fergeson hunted around for a suitable text for her Year 11 students, she then added a vocabulary grid and a prereading activity. I added to the prediction exercise, I added a map, a keyword list and an art movement matching exercise. We taught the lesson together adding discussions on the various art movements and trends related to the period.
The scaffolding of this two-paragraph text still seems inadequate but there is a time factor to consider when delivering the Curriculum. Non-fiction texts have a lexical density and cultural underpinnings that far outweigh fiction texts. The structure of a non-fiction text also creates problems for many of our students.
Thanks for your help with this Marc. You are correct. The text presumes a large amount of pre knowledge. Understanding while reading the text is limited when that knowledge is not there. Believe it or not, this text was the simplest one I could find for them after a long search.
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