I was very lucky to have the opportunity to visit my sibling who's working abroad for a few months. This was to be the beginning of a journey into art, I didn't think I would enjoy or even know how to take. What's more, it was an art journey I didn't expect to have.I landed in London early on Friday morning and 24 hours later we were standing in the Lucian Freud exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. I certainly hadn't planned to be walking among his many famous nude paintings and reflecting on his use of color and light or on his evolving technique and his masculine depiction of women. But, I did. A day later, we were visiting with relatives who live close to Kew Gardens. Toward the end of our trip we stopped into a gallery that displays all of Marianne North's works. She was a English woman born in the early 19th century, who traveled the world painting plants in their natural habitat with such attention to detail that when I stepped into the small museum, it was as if I had been transported to a jungle. The following two days, I meandered solo through the Tate Britain and Tate Modern, and started to find artists whose work was truly inspiring like Pierre Bonnard and Spencer Gore. A few days later, on a short visit to Paris, we walked through the great rooms of the Musee D'orsay, spending the first two hours exploring the Degas exhibit and the next few exploring other impressionists and post-impressionists. By the end of my 10 day trip, I had been to six art museums.Each one of these experiences could warrant its own blog post, but together they speak to something larger. For most of my life, art museums have been out of reach. Art was for arty people, art students, the elite few who understood what it could be and over time, visual art became a foreign concept.But, during my crash course through some of the world's most magnificent art museums I found that I truly enjoyed the experience of looking at a piece of art, learning about the historical context or artist's motivations and looking closely at each artist's technique. And color, I found such fascination with use of color! This experience also allowed me to see artists for more than their most famous works. For example, I've always been familiar with Monet's Water Lilies, but I left being so much more moved by his paintings of the Rouen Cathedral in Normandy. It was also a lesson in how visual arts, are intensely iterative and just how much preparation is needed for what eventually becomes a masterpiece. This was particularly obvious in the Degas' exhibit where his sample drawings were on display adjacent to his final paintings.The final part of my journey or perhaps the beginning of a new journey began roughly 18 hours ago. I downloaded the app Paper for the iPad. I started drawing and painting with two of the five tools, a paintbrush and a drawing marker. I've created 8 drawings so far, and I see no end in sight! What I think is so powerful about this tool is that it gives me a canvas, where I feel much freer and perhaps less pressure to be perfect. This morning, I drew a simple scene, my bathtub and the shower curtain. However to do so, I had to think about:

• the proportions so that no one part of the painting was exaggerated
• the angles of the painting to ensure that the third dimension was believable
• how to blend and achieve similar colors
• how to create light and dark

And just as they are bolded, these ideas jumped out at me. These are not new, but it became evident, through my own creation that we could and should weave art into classes and coursework versus keeping it as a separate subject or topic. I feel strongly that visual arts in particular are, and can be, a unique entry point for students. This coupled with technology that allays pressure of perfection, but rather allows one to iterate and create is exciting. What happens when art is a part of the conversation, or a mediating factor in a classroom? My art education ended in 8th grade, having to choose between taking art classes and other electives. But, if there was a way to weave art, be it analysis and conversation or creation, into the classic subject areas, so that it's not divorced from school, somehow separating students or silo-ing others, I think this could have a profound impact on the way students learn and teachers teach.I may not have started as an "art" kid but hereinafter, I am an "art" person.

Bathtub - a draft

When I was a kid, I was an avid reader. I absolutely loved novels of any kind from the more formulaic, Nancy Drew and BabySitter's club series, to classics like Pride & Prejudice. Over the years however, and especially over the last few years, I've all but stopped reading literature. Instead, most of the books that I'd read in recent memory were books related to education reform or policy, and if not, they were definitely non-fiction. Thankfully, this changed recently.When I was home over the holidays, I picked up my brother's old copy of Last Days of Summer. I had tried reading this book a few times and could never seem to get into the style of writing. If you haven't read it, the author makes use of written correspondence like letters and telegrams and other artifacts like playbills and movie stubs to tell the story. I brought the book home with me and after a few pages found myself nestled on the couch feverishly flipping pages wondering what was going to happen next. It felt amazing - like I was 12 again. I finished the book in one sitting!This experience evoked two reactions in me, the first is that I have forgotten what it feels like to fall in love with characters, to hope and pray things work out for them, that they achieve their dreams, marry their soulmate, etc. etc.. There is an inexplicable joy in feeling so strongly about people you can't see or touch. But that is what a great work of fiction can do, it can move you! This of course is credit to the writer who artfully constructed a novel using everyday texts, never did I miss the dialogue. From that Thursday on, I've been scouring book lists and getting suggestions from everyone about novels. The "to read" list that I'm documenting on my Good Reads account is getting bigger and bigger!The second thing it got me thinking about is about writing. Can you think of the last time you wrote a letter? I used to love handwritten letters. Most of them exchanged between my older sister and I. She; always imparting advice and sharing tidbits of her adventures in college and beyond, me; narrating the daily drama that was my life as a pre-teen. Unfortunately, e-mail and other forms of communication, fast eclipsed those handwritten letters. In addition to making a long list of books on my "to-read" list, I made a personal commitment to writing letters, the old fashioned way. That week, I sent off a card to my sister... par avion.The second letter I wrote just yesterday. As I sat down to write I realized how different this was in comparison to our regular e-mail/gchat/facebook/twitter etc. communications. There wasn't a specific topic, no direct subject line or URL to include. I meandered from topic to topic, having a one sided conversation, for which I will eagerly await a response. There might be no logic in such an act, but the sheer joy I've extracted from writing, from practicing cursive, from forcing myself to think deeply about each word, given that there's no backspace with pen, has been immense!And there you have it, the joy that reading a great book can bring you, not to mention the inspiration it spread throughout my life. Thanks to Last Days of Summer, I've reconnected with two of my great loves... reading and writing.PS. the image pictured is the first card my sister wrote back to me, compliments of this card company.

Context

This is week three of the reading program, my third week with Sienna and second with Charlotte. My goal with Sienna today was to get her to stay excited about a text and with Charlotte, it was to continue to learn about her reading style and see what is interesting and exciting to her.

Sienna

Today, I met resistance with Sienna. We read a book entitled Bird first; just two- three letter sentences per page and the rest of the pages were filled with images of bird. and then she grabbed a paper and began writing enthusiastically. Then she moved onto a book about Insects. A narration:

She slowly read page one out loud, struggling with words like mosquitoes . Before we began, I had her look at the images, she knew all the insects.

After page one I asked her about what she had just read.

Then, she turned the page, as she began to read, she stopped, "I don't want to read this book." she ran across the room to get another book that she was familiar with.

I said, "listen, I know it's a challenge but you picked this book and I want you to stick with it"

She grabbed the paper and drew a math problem, 137+155 "can you solve this?" I responded "I can, can you?" she proceeded to solve it.

Finally after the problem was solved I said "let's get back to insects!"

Surprisingly, she could see my resolve and started to read again.

When she got stuck, I used the same tactic that I had with Charlotte the week prior, writing out words in their syllables and helping he sound them out.Things I did today that I thought helped:

• celebrate her victories with high fives and exclamations
• encourage her when she was on the right track, "you are so close! I love the connections you made"

Questions I have:Should I feel bad that I pushed her to stick with the text ?

Charlotte

We continues to read about Duke Ellington. Before we opened the book, we talked about the book:

After sitting down, I looked at her and asked, "do you remember what happened?" She hesitated, "umm it's about Duke." I said, "shall we go back?" She said slowly, "yeah." We flipped through and as we passed through the images, she was able to tell me the story again.

Then we continued, falling into our pattern of her reading and me stopping her to ask a question or point something out.Questions I have:If a student picks a book that is extremely challenging, like this one on Duke Ellington and reading, both from the pronunciation perspective and comprehension are challenges, what are some effective ways to work with the student so they really understand the beautiful imagery and word play the author has used? Is there a time when text is too complex for a student?

2.9.12Today's reading session made me think a lot about the context that students bring with them to a text. Even the first week, I was amazed by the knowledge of words that Sienna had, despite her struggle to manage text at times.She obviously had absorbed so much, perhaps through conversation, through music and movies and even probably reading. But how does one get into a text? How does one break down the barriers of challenging text and persevere?Here are today's experiences.SiennaI picked up Sienna first and gave her the option to select a book like I had done the first week. She selected a book about deserts from the non-fiction bucket. I tried using some of the strategies we'd been taught in the training "What does the cover make you think? What kind of plant is that?" She talked confidently about the cactus on the cover but as soon as we opened the book and started to read, I could see her face fall. She looked up at me and asked if she could get another book and I coalesced. After all, how could it be worthwhile if she wasn't passionate about the text? She came back a book in the Thomas the Train series.She asked if we could share reading responsibilities like we did last week. She started, and as we read, I could see her struggle over words. Each time she encountered a challenging word she got more discouraged. She wasn't a fan of sounding the words out. She slowly lost interest in the book and got up to find a new one, bringing back another Thomas the Train book. This one had just one sentence per page with little cut outs she could open and close. We ended up reading this book instead.As I walked her back to class, I asked her about why she didn't seem to like reading. She responded that she got easily frustrated because it was challenging and therefore she didn't want to keep doing it. I was really appreciative of her self awareness and honesty.CharlotteWhen I went to pick up my second student, let's call her Charlotte, I saw a small little girl look up at me with anticipation. She quietly walked toward me and I introduced myself and started a casual conversation. Personality wise, she was very different from Sienna, more serious, more shy. While we walked to the classroom she mentioned she loved music. So when we got to the book cart, I pointed out a book about Duke Ellington (not having any knowledge of this book myself) and asked her if she wanted to read it. She agreed.As she began to read to me I was surprised by the complexity of some of the words. In the first few pages, the author uses the phrase "umpy-dump", to describe the sound Duke Ellington thought the piano used to make before he cultivated a love for the instrument. The author also uses colloquialisms like "' playin' " and "singin'" and similar phrasing. I found myself thinking... How does a third grader, whose focus and emphasis in school is likely on spelling /speaking correctly, reconcile these words/phrases? Then there were words that she could pronounce but hard to explain like the phrase "self-rousing romp" and the word "plunk." For these, I used analogies, expressions, even whole body action, to "define" the words. I even used my iPhone to pull up a clip, to illustrate what ragtime music sounded like, which prompted some laughter and wonder. (Yes!)This got me thinking, should I have stopped and said "hey this book isn't for you?" I did my best to explain the words in simpler language so she could relate to the sentiments being expressed, but I still wasn't sure how this book was okay for a third grade student. At the end of a sentence or two, I would talk to her about what she understood, asking her probing questions, without (at least I hope) being too forceful.What was different about Charlotte was that she seemed open to my approach of reading, questioning, sounding out, repeating, discussing and so on. Before I knew it, I was walking her back to class.ReflectionsI left today, inspired. My time with Charlotte encouraged me that there was a way to find wonder in the story, even for kids who need more support with the reading of text. It was also heartening to hear Sienna share her frustration with reading, because it gave me a starting point.But, again, I'm left with questions, some philosophical, some practical:

• What does a teacher do with a student who clearly loves narrative but struggles with interpreting written text?
• When text seems to be more complex than students are ready for, do we still persist?
• Can breaking down and discussing text, demystify the text?
• Is there a way to determine if students' are truly understanding text, when there's so much emphasis on decoding words and explaining the broader meanings of sentences/phrases? How?
• When does the teaching of reading stop ? (When does it become about teaching about what's being read?) What happens to the students who don't get past the first part?

In an effort to stay involved with schools and students in my local community, I went to nyc.serve.gov to find more volunteer opportunities. During my search I found a small non-profit that has run a reading program in a few schools in the city. They happened to be working with a school in Brooklyn and needed volunteers. I was excited to have found the opportunity and decided that I would chronicle this experience as well.I met the coordinator to get a quick overview of the classroom and where the materials were located and before I knew it, we were picking up one of my students. She looked so happy to come out of class. She chatted easily with the volunteer coordinator, who accompanied me, about Transformers (the movie) and Alvin and the Chipmunks. I found myself a little rusty, following the coordinators lead and asking about likes and dislikes. Somehow talking to students is always so much more intimidating than speaking with adults. Will they like me? Will I be interesting to them? Can I make a connection?When we got back to the classroom, I gave my student (let's call her Sienna) the option to pick a book, she selected the first one she saw about kids around the world. The school had asked the coordinators to choose non-fiction texts due to the looming state tests. Upon hearing this, I felt complicit in this forced non-fiction book selection. Of course it was important for students to experience a genre of varieties, but at the expense of what? I digress.Sienna was enthusiastic at first about alternating readers. She read the first page and then I read the next page and it went like that. However, after two or three pages, she asked if we could draw. I didn't want to discourage her so soon after meeting her so I grabbed scrap paper and colored pencils. As we moved to the next page of reading I asked her to read the next page about a kid from Nunuvat and then she chose to draw a picture of a snow mobile. When I asked her "what is a snow mobile?" she was able to answer me but in a very vague way. She wanted to stick to drawing but I convinced her with a little pushing that we should keep reading.As she read I observed that when she encountered familiar words she read quickly but when it came to words that required sounding out she wouldn't even look at the word, she would glance away and then just say some syllables trying to match the beginning sounds. So for a word like "Nunuvat" she would just say "Nu waaa?" and look back at me. Any time I tried to get her to look at the word, she got listless. I could tell it wasn't the first time someone asked her to "sound out" the syllables. I tried to keep her engaged by asking her questions about what we were reading. For example when she read about the boy from Tanzania who lived near zebras, lions, etc, I said "what does a lion look like? Have you seen one? What about a zebra?"I also tried to ask questions about the text specifically, to evaluate comprehension, which is one of the main goals of the reading program. When I did I noticed that she was able to observe when the answer wasn't quite right and then, just as she's been taught, she would start reading small excerpts from the text until she got the question right.We got through the book, which described briefly six kids but she seemed increasingly disinterested in discussing the book. She asked a few times if it was lunch, time to go and also kept closing her eyes. I struggled to find ways to keep her interested in the text and from losing her interest all together.Given that it was day one together, I switched to asking her more about herself and telling her about myself. I now know that she loves math,science and Dora the Explorer. She explicitly mentioned that she doesn't like reading. I told her a few things about myself and was happy to hear she found it surprising I was older than 20.We never got to the reading response activity that we were meant to accomplish by the end of our time together. However, there would always be next week.My questions:

• How do you motivate a reader who even at such a young age has become discouraged with the process?
• How does the relationship between reader and teacher (in this case me) play into the reading process?
• Are there ways for me to change this paradigm for her? Or is my lack of knowledge on this topic only making things worse?
• Who will ultimately be responsible for her fluctuating ability to read more challenging words and texts?
• If she finds third grade challenging in terms of text, what happens in fourth grade?

There are so many more questions, but I will reserve them for a future post.