The mind a the senses:
medit-ation on an elephant
Elianda Cazzorla
PACE
Project 2007-08
Actors
• The students contribute: personal experience, art
and literary preferences, interpretation and creation
of written texts and art works
• The teacher contributes visual and literary exemplars
and stimuli.
• The teacher is a facilitator and an advisor
• The class is a collaborative workshop
• The individual student thinks and shares, in and
outside of the classroom
• The Biennale artists and their works of art
Art & Language Literacy skills
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Familiarizing with the rhetorical figure of
“ekphrasis” (“short descriptive symbolic
text”)
Developing skills in reading images
Identifying the explicit “messages” in
images/texts
Exploring the implicit “messages” in
images/texts
Writing analytically and creatively about
images/text
Reviewing and editing initial responses in
order to acheve precision and clarity
The operational framework
• Students: a IV year class (20 students 17-18 years old)
• Timetable: 6 lessons of 50 minutes each for 4 weeks +
one day trip to Venice Biennale (homework time not
included)
• Period: september-october
• Step 1: reading the story “ The 6 blind men and the
elephant” in different versions
• Step 2: looking for images and texts which can
exemplify the meaning of the story
• Step 3: visiting the ‘Biennale’ exhibition 2007 in Venice
• Step 4: project work (art installation & critical and/or
creative text writing)
Common strategies (1):
Aims:
• Knowledge leading to understanding
• Encouragment of students to develop their
own well-founded ideas and express them in
both oral, written and muldimensional art
work
• Reflecting on the learning process (both the
teacher’s and the student’s  Schön
Common strategies (2)
Methodology:
• Practical work in tandem with theory
• Learning both inside and outside the
classroom
• Respecting for and fostering of different kinds
of minds and intellegences
• Adopting different approaches and resources
• Students taking responsibility for contributing
Step 1 - Images and wisdom
The six blind men and the elephant
What does the teacher do ?
Dramatic reading & discussion
The aim
To help students understand how complex reality is and
how knowledge is gradually built through the
processing and the coming together of different points
of view
Texts:
Coles – Ross, L’Alfabeto della saggezza, racconto sufi, Einaudi ragazzi
John Godfrey Saxe‘s (1816-1887) version of the famous Indian legend
Step 2.1 - The students’ learning
path
• Students re-read the
text and look for
images which might
represent the
meaning of the story
in the way each of
them interprets it.
Step 2.2 - The students’ learning path
• The teacher presents another literary
text to get the students to reflect on
the interpretation of reality from
different points of view.
• Students produce a personalized art
version of the text
Amos Oz, La scatola nera, Feltrinelli,
p.137
Step 2.3 - The students’ learning path
• The class select a photo or an art work
which can stir an emotional reaction
• Each student writes something (it can
either be analytic or creative  H.
Gardner)
Guidato dal vento
Girano come pale di mulini a vento queste ruote
stanche di girare a filo d’acqua.
Con le mie mani ferme e forti sul manubrio, vado
dove mi porta la foglia di palma che piegata dà forza
divina mi indica la strada.
Il mio pensiero va a quando girandomi indietro,
vedevo le orme della strada mia già fatta:
ferme e forti impresse nella sabbia.
Oh memoria mi hai già lasciato solo,
se guardo appena indietro non più l’ultimo passo
vedo.
Anna Maria Moro
Step 3 – the Venice Biennale visit
• Connection with the 2007 theme (“Think with
your senses and feel through your mind”)
• The teacher visits the exhibition beforehand
and prepares a guide, ideally including all the
pavillions of the PACE partners’ countries
• Students visit the exhibition and choose a
piece of art
Step 4 – from Biennale to the classroom
• Students start
working on their
project work: they
transfer what they
wrote or drew or
photographed into a
poliedric shape (art
installation & critical
and/or creative text
writing)
Future perspectives & directions
• This image represents people of
different ages and genders walking in
different directions, but within the same
space. The space has the symbolic
shape of an eye, where many people
are reflected.
• From here we might take different and
unpredictable paths…
Bibliography
Didactics and literary texts
• M.Borroni, P.Bersi, C.Ricci, Leggere i mass media, Zanichelli,
2000
• R. Dynes, Scrittura creativa in gruppo, Erickson, Trento 1997
• (a cura di) T. De Mauro, P.Pedace, A.G.Stasi, Teoria e pratica
della scrittura creativa, CONTROLUCE, ROMA 1999 [si ordina
per internet dal sito di OMERO lab. Di scrittura]
• (a cura di Rosa Calò) Scrivere comunicare inventare
apprendere, Franco Angeli 2003
• (a cura di C.Lavinio) Educazione linguistica Educazione
letterararia intersezioni, Angeli 2005
• L.Paini, Cinema, Zanichelli 2003
• G.Sbrilli, V. Porta, A. Pellegrino, M.Moschitta, Quadri d’autore,
vol. C. Bulgarini 2005
• G.Vignato, E.Cazzorla, G.Galesso, Fabula, vol. A, La grammatica
del lettore, B. Mondadori, Milano, 2000