Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Monday, November 24, 2008

Gallery (click any photo to view the gallery)

Students molded clay figures of themselves in the classroom and fashioned sets in cardboard boxes for the stop-action animation project.

Kids at Rosa Parks Elementary want to be in pictures, take pictures and write about them, too.

For the past two weeks, students at the school followed the lead of artist-in-residence Ruben Moreno, whose “Literacy through Photography” workshop helped them learn to describe what they see in everyday life.

“What the photo will do is hopefully stimulate them in content areas to write about, by bringing in a different sensory media. I’ll try to get them to realize there’s a story in the picture,” he said. 

Several kids said they particularly liked Moreno’s storyboard exercise. “He gave us old pictures and we cut them up, and we had to tell a story about them,” fourth-grader Jack Stokley explained. 

Throughout the program, the students analyzed the elements and composition of historical photos, images from home and pictures they had taken at school. 

“My favorite part was when we went outside and took abstract photos,” said fifth-grader Rebecca Fine, who experimented with her camera’s flash and zoomed in for close-ups of plants and the American flag. 

Moreno also walked the students through narrative exercises, one time using Norman Rockwell paintings. “It was real easy to find the focal point and come up with subplots of what was happening in the picture,” he said. 

In another assignment, he encouraged the kids to write about a portrait – whether of a neighbor, a pet or even themselves. “You can write about your experience of taking the picture or you can do a poem,” he instructed the kids. “Do more than just give me a picture of your dog,” he added. “Tell me something about your dog’s personality.”

Leslie Cole Skillman, the project coordinator, said after studying different learning styles through the Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership (a program designed to help parents become advocates for their kids), she began to notice her own children’s preferences.

“I thought this might be a good way to infuse a new learning technique for writing,” she said of Moreno’s afterschool workshop. “I see the role of art, especially at the elementary level, with the interest that my children have. It’s a way to allow them to have some creative process through this photography project.”

Rosa Parks teachers agreed on the workshop’s merits for their students.

“I think it’s good for them to see writing connected to art, photography and animation,” said Bryan Quisenberry, a fourth-grade teacher. “Hopefully, they will see writing as a vehicle to communicate and express ideas rather than just completing a portfolio assignment.” 

As a secondary project at Rosa Parks, Moreno worked with fourth- and fifth-graders on clay animation during their regular art period.  

The children each molded a 6-inch figure of themselves using pliable, oil-based colored clay. The process also involved making storyboards and cardboard sets, videotaping in stop-action format, adding voiceover dialogue and background music, and editing their short film into a DVD. 

“It’s a crowd-pleaser,” Moreno said. “Just being able to see a clay figure move that they’ve built will open up a whole area of interest and discovery that feeds into other things.” 

See for yourself

The students’ work will be featured in a gallery showing Dec. 5 at Rosa Parks Elementary School, 1251 Beaumont Centre Lane, (859) 381-3132, and during the holidays at the Beaumont branch of the Lexington Public Library.