4.1.3

Standard 4.1.3 asks students to "Respond to literature and creative expressions of ideas in various formats and genres."

This standard reminds me of a project a teacher at my high school had my Rational and Non-Rational Meaning course. He played instrumental music and asked the students in the class to draw what the music made them feel. I like this project because it forces students to think of one medium, music, in terms of another, visual art.

From here I came up with a similar project. A teacher who wishes to help students understand, or more precisely express, their reactions to poetry or classical music, could read aloud the poem or play the piece of music in question. Then the teacher could direct students to @http://www.sumopaint.com/app/, where the students would be free to create a visual representation of their reaction to the piece, then share what they made with each other. There are various sites similar to www.sumopaint.com where students can create images similar to how they would in Microsoft paint, and save the images to share with each other. The teacher could use the students' creations using www.sumopaint.com as a starting point in discussing how similar or different students' reactions were, and what this says about the piece in question.



Although Enchanted Learning is intended for home-schoolers K-3, it is a great resource for anyone in that age group, anyone teaching that age group, or for those or are English Language Learners, or beginners in foreign languages, or developmentally disabled persons of any age. The literature is available in a wide variety of formats on this website. Users can either read materials on the website or print out booklets. Everything is categorized thematically and then broken down by genre and activity. Activities can include reading for verbal linguistic learners. Words are broken down phonetically for the more auditory learners and are available in English and nine other languages including American Sign Language. Crafts and activities are also included for the more kinetic learners.



There are people who worry that kinetic and visual learners who are normally drawn to art may be put off by using digital paint programs. Recent studies have found that, while digital paint programs will never be able to fully replace the role of actual hands on work with art, digital paint programs possess their own set of unique qualities which help students develop creatively. "Electronic paint has qualities of its own in terms of colour, shape, and movement," says John Matthews and Peter Seow in their article //Electronic Paint: Understanding Children's Representation through their Interactions with Digital Paint//, "These unique qualities cause important new twists and turns in developmental trajectories [...] We also felt that the children enjoyed a kind of sensuality unique to this microchip universe. Although it is essential that children explore the messy, gooiness and splatterines of real pigment, the smooth glide of electronic paint across a luminous glass screen is also a sensuous and enjoyable experience."

As for how these programs meet the standards, when it comes to NETS-S both SumoPaint and Enchanted Learning provide means for students to express themselves creatively. Using the tools made available by Enchanted Learning and SumoPaint, students can both create their own original works and express themselves in reaction to preexisting works, making them both apply to NETS-S standard 1.A and 1.B.

Standard 1.A states that students should be able to apply existing knowledge to generate new products, ideas, or processes. Enchanted Learning allows students to browse materials by genre, which is an excellent way to help students in the K-3 grade range develop an understanding of how literature is broken into categories. When students browse Enchanted Learning, they use their preexisting knowledge to form conclusions about the nature of categorization. For example, a child who knows he likes the Star Wars movies asks his teacher what genre they would fall under. The teacher tells him that they are science fiction. The student would then browse the science fiction section of Enchanted Learning, thus gaining a better understanding of what the genre science fiction means and developing a better understanding of his own personal aesthetic.

Standard 1.B states that students should be able to create original works as a means of personal or group expression. SumoPaint offers a simple, easy to use interface for students to create original works. SumoPaint is also beneficial in that its interface is very similar to popular programs such as Microsoft Paint and Adobe Photoshop; while making original works using SumoPaint students are also practicing skills that will easily transfer to a variety of other artistic programs.