Inquiry-Based Learning Through the Creative Arts for Teachers and Teacher Educators

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Introduction and Looking Both Ways: How (and Why) a High School English Teacher and an English Education Professor Formed a Partnership That Informed Their Practices

   • Amanda Nicole Gulla, Molly Hamilton Sherman

   Pages 1-15

3. Teaching to Meet the Moment

   • Amanda Nicole Gulla, Molly Hamilton Sherman

   Pages 17-50

4. What We Talk About When We Talk About Texts: Landscape with the Fall of Icarus and Ekphrastic Poetry

   • Amanda Nicole Gulla, Molly Hamilton Sherman

   Pages 51-66

5. Imagining the World as If It Could Be Otherwise: Preparing Students for Solving Problems and Seeing Possibilities (Writing Poetry as Evidence-Based Argument)

   • Amanda Nicole Gulla, Molly Hamilton Sherman

   Pages 67-79

6. Analyzing and Synthesizing Our Stories: Exploring Identity Through Art and Poetry

   • Amanda Nicole Gulla, Molly Hamilton Sherman

   Pages 81-115

7. Art as Exploration: Jacob Lawrence and the Great Migration

   • Amanda Nicole Gulla, Molly Hamilton Sherman

   Pages 117-142

8. Making Claims and Making Change: Creative Responses to the 1619 Project

   • Amanda Nicole Gulla, Molly Hamilton Sherman

   Pages 143-157

9. Point of View: Stepping Inside the Story

   • Amanda Nicole Gulla, Molly Hamilton Sherman

   Pages 159-183

10. Teaching as Transaction: Building Community Through Shared Inquiry

    • Amanda Nicole Gulla, Molly Hamilton Sherman

    Pages 185-204

11. This Is Not for Me: In Which We Discuss Some Challenges and Obstacles That May Impede the Development of an Inquiry-Based Learning Through the Arts Practice, and What Might Be Done About Them

    • Amanda Nicole Gulla, Molly Hamilton Sherman

    Pages 205-212

12. Back Matter

    Pages 213-221

    PDF

This book is a theoretical and practical guide to implementing an inquiry-based approach to teaching which centers creative responses to works of art in curriculum. Guided by Maxine Greene’s philosophy of Aesthetic Education, the authors discuss the social justice implications of marginalized students having access to the arts and opportunities to find their voices through creative expression. They aim to demystify the process of inquiry-based learning through the arts for teachers and teacher educators by offering examples of lessons taught in high school classrooms and graduate level teaching methods courses. Examples of student writing and art work show how creative interactions with the arts can help learners of all ages deepen their skills as readers, writers, and thinkers.

• art curriculum
• teaching and learning
• literacy skills
• Poetry
• Literary Analysis
• creativity
• middle school
• high school
• writing skills

“One of the hardest things to learn as a teacher or a prospective teacher is to teach in a way differently than we were taught and learned. The constraining power of our experiential tacit theory of teaching and learning is both hard to recognize and difficult to change. This book provides a rich basis for doing so since it both enacts its principles of inquiry-based learning and uses the interpretation and creation of creative arts to enrich and deepen the graduate students’ experience of both inquiry-based learning and creative responses to poetry and paintings. Their emphasis on using these processes to reach and teach traditionally marginalized students makes this book particularly timely in the context of confronting America’s racist realities. In addition, Chapter 2 powerfully and clearly shows the writers and their students adapting to the unprecedented reality of the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic which shut down the schools and the colleges. Although no one would wish such achange, the flexibility that all the teachers and students demonstrated during it actually enacted the kind of growth that the book hopes to help occur for learners even in whatever will pass for ‘normal’ education in the future. Teachers and students who are looking for new paths for learning will have no better guide than the insights and experiences of Gulla and Sherman and their students.”
—John S. Mayher, Professor Emeritus of English Education, New York University, USA, and author of Uncommon Sense (1990) and Learning to Write/Writing to Learn (1983)

“Gulla and Sherman deftly introduce inquiry-based learning as a pedagogy of liberation and aesthetics.  Educators interested in social justice and engaging students with material from their own lives will find much to love about this unique volume. The detailed lesson plans and extended examples will have you ready to incorporate arts-based practice in your curriculum. This volume will have aprominent place on my book shelf. “
—Sandra L. Faulkner, Professor of Media and Communication, Bowling Green State University, USA, and author of Poetic Inquiry: Craft, Method and Practice (2020)

“International education systems are refocusing on higher order skills such as creativity to adapt to the formidable economic, environmental, and social challenges of the twenty-first century. Additionally, despite the wide recognition of Maxine Greene’s influence on education in North America, published applications of her ideas about aesthetic education seem to be short supply. Gulla and Sherman's admirable and beautiful book clearly demonstrates how these important concepts are being explored with both school students and teacher candidates.”
—Heather McLeod, Professor, Arts Education, Memorial University, Canada

 

• English Education, Lehman College, City University of New York, Bronx, USA

  Amanda Nicole Gulla

• Harvest Collegiate High School, New York, USA

  Molly Hamilton Sherman

Amanda Nicole Gulla is Professor of English Education at Lehman College (CUNY), USA, where she teaches writing and aesthetic education. Her research and writing focus primarily on creativity, imagination, and social justice in education, as well as poetic inquiry. She is the author of a poetry book, A Banner Year for Apples, and sits on the Board of Directors of the Maxine Greene Institute for Aesthetic Education and the Social Imagination.

Molly Hamilton Sherman teaches graduate students in the English Education Program at Lehman College (CUNY), USA, and high school English at Harvest Collegiate High School in New York City, USA. She has taught EFL, English, and English Education on three different continents. She also facilitates professional development for the New York City Writing Project.

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