Developmental Art in the Low
Literacy Classroom
Jean Marrapodi  jmarrapodi@applestar.org  @jmarrapodi 401-440-6165

Context
 Adult Sunday School Class
 Liberian refugees
 Senior citizens, age unknown (not tracked in
Liberia)
 Meet 1 hour/week for past 5 years

Preamble: Spring 2006
 Lesson One: Palm Sunday
 Draw a picture to illustrate the story
 Could not do.
 Through a translator: “We can’t do that. We haven’t
practiced like you have to be able to do that.”

Preamble Two
 Lesson Two: Easter
 Ok, let’s copy some drawings to tell the story.
 We can’t do that.

Preamble Three
 Let’s try to copy some
symbols then.
 Could not complete
unless dots were drawn
to connect the lines.
 Circles were misshapen
and barely recognizable.

No Print Awareness
Elizabeth loves Jesus
Switched cards:
Jesus loves Elizabeth
Said: Elizabeth loves Jesus.

Reading Art: Part One
Isabella Stewart Gardner Adam and Eve
Museum, Boston
C
H
A
T
T
E
R
Ho-hum !

Reading Art: Part Two

What time of
year is it?

Setting One: October 2010
 Pastor Appreciation Sunday
 Given a template with prompts:
 Pastor Berkley is ___________
 Pastor Michele is ___________
 I love my pastors!
 Learned what the prompts said. Asked to come up
with a word to fill in. They either copied the word
or had teacher spell it.
 Draw a picture of you and the pastors.

Setting Two (following week)
 Given blank paper and markers
 Draw a picture of you with your grandchildren
 Teacher wrote names of children

Annie K.

Elizabeth

Martha

Essah

Kumba

Annie G.

Frances
* Granddaughter came over to “help”
*
*
*
*

Setting Three (following week)
 Discussion about houses in America vs Liberia
 Let’s draw pictures of your houses here and in
Liberia.
 Given blank paper and markers
 Teacher wrote words as given prompts

Martha
Martha lives in an
apartment building.

Elizabeth
America on the left.
Liberia on the right.
Elizabeth lives in
apartment 511 in a high
rise building. She takes
an elevator to get to her
apartment.

Annie K.
Annie lives on in a triple-
decker in RI.

Annie G. Annie lives on in a two story single
family home.

Frances
Frances lives on the first
floor of a two story
house.

Kumba
Kumba lives in
townhouse type
apartments in a complex

Essah
Essah lives in a second
floor apartment.

Setting Four
 Kumba’s spontaneous drawings brought from
home in the subsequent weeks.

Other Projects
 Painting background for nativities – 12/2009
 Cutting snowflakes – 1/2011

Parallels to Children’s Work?
Does their natural development mirror emergent
literacy?

Drawings of people by nursery
school children
http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/890/children%27s-drawings-human-figures.html

Tadpole Figure
By a pre- From a severely By a pre-
school child mentally school child
handicapped adult
http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/890/children%27s-drawings-human-figures.html

Sarah – 3.2 to 3.4 years
people
a cat, Tyrannosaurus rex, and a leopard
http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/890/children%27s-drawings-human-figures.html

Helen, 4.5 – 5.5 years
http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/890/children%27s-drawings-human-figures.html

Abby, Age 4

Rachel, Age 7

Developmental Art
Development in Children

Callaghan Phases of Development
Callaghan, T.C. (2008) The origins and Development of Pictorial
Symbol Functioning. In Children’s Understanding and Production
of Pictures, Drawings, and Art: Theoretical and Empirical
Approaches. Cambridge, MA: Hogrefe. P 22

Donley, S.K. 1985/1987
Adapted from teacher inservice training materials for early
childhood, art education, and special education workshops.
http://www.learningdesign.com/Portfolio/DrawDev/kiddrawing.html
#anchor2470313

Rhoda Kellogg: Gestalts
Kellogg, R. (1969) Analyzing children’s art. Paolo Alto, CA: National Press Books. P 109

Kellog’s Scheme
of the Evolution
of Pictorial
Work
Common
Sequences
Kellogg, R. (1969) Analyzing children’s art. Paolo Alto, CA: National Press Books. P 273

House-Tree-Person/Kinetic HTP
Measure aspects of person’s personality 3 years-adult
Common in art therapy
Questionable validity
1948/1969

Josiah, Age 4

Noah, Age 6

Rachel, Age 8

Micah, Age 10

Annie K.

Frances

Kumba

Martha

Elizabeth

Essah

Value of Using Art
"This adapted Kinetic-House-Tree-Person for adults with
developmental disabilities holds promise for providing an arts-
based assessment that assesses for growth and positive
changes in the individual in addition to negative or
downward changes. Verbal assessments are not always
appropriate due to verbal limitations within the individual who
has developmental disabilities, therefore, arts therapists have at
their disposal alternatives for assessing for change in functioning.
Because this assessment mirrored the notes of the on-site
therapists, this assessment suggests it can measure change. It also
suggests that arts based interventions do, in
fact, facilitate well-being and positive changes in
interaction and communication."
p 45 Lister & Rosales In Snow and D'Amico

Value of Using Art
"...there is evidence of a relationship
between thought and drawing that
becomes visible through the study of
meaning-making processes. Drawing
supports the movement from simple
spontaneous concepts to more complex
concepts and plays an important role in
promoting higher mental functions. "
Brooks, Drawing to Learn in Making Meaning p. 9

Is It Cultural?

Alexander Alland, 1983
 240 children’s drawings
 Six cultures
 Bali
 Ponape
 Taiwan
 Japan
 US
 France
 Definite cultural variants

Ponape
Now Pohnpie, Micronesia
Male, 4 years, 19 minutes
Female, 5 years, 5 minutes
First encounter with drawing
 Limited exposure to art
 Generally single color
 Human figures rare
 Nonconformity with Western norms Male, 5 years, 14 minutes

Bali
Male, 3.3 years, 30 minutes
Female, 4.6 years, 25 minutes
 Overall density
 Polychromatic
 No stories
 Highly artistic culture Male, 2.6 years, 18 minutes

Taiwan
Female, 4.8 years, 10 minutes
Female, 6.8 years
 Long heritage of art
 Filling, building, touching, details
 Picture making influenced by
relationship between pictorial Male, 5.2 years, 24 minutes
representation and writing

Japan
Male, 5.6years, 27 minutes
Female, 3.10 years, 14 minutes
 Modern aesthetic in culture
 Highly visual culture
 Colorful, often single subject Female, 4.11 years, 8 minutes

Alexander Alland, 1983
Conclusions:
“…the two most important elements
in drawing skill among young
children are experience and
exposure to art.”
P 63
"On the basis of my data I believe that
representation and symbolism are
things children are consciously or
unconsciously taught to do by adults
and other children. This leads to the
conclusion that the only safe
definition of children's drawing can
be 'playing with form.'"
p215

What we know about Liberia’s Art
Dan, Mano, Kran , Kpelle tribal art
 Known for their
carved masks
 Music and dance very
important
 Kissi make baskets
and weave on vertical
looms
 Literacy rate: 25%
http://www.mariomeneghini.com/destination%20Dan,%20Ma
no,%20Krahn,%20Kpelle/index.htm

Relating this to Writing

Children Create Letters in Art
"Most of the letters of the English alphabet, both capitals and lower-
case forms, are made by young children as art Gestalts. In art, the
letters are placed or arranged to complete a Pattern or an
implied shape. In language, the letters are arranged in a
certain order within words and are put into a certain left-
right and top-bottom placement. As the child learns to
read, he must perceive the differences between the esthetic
and the linguistic positioning of letters, and as he learns to
write, he must put this perception to use.
Each child who has scribbled a
great deal will know many of the
letter Gestalts when he enters
school, but he needs to learn the
differences between their uses
for art and for language.
Otherwise, he will have serious
difficulties with language.”
Kellogg, 1970 p 262

Charlie’s Story

Not seeing letters, but shapes

Elizabeth did the same thing

Learning to Read and Write Art
“...human artistry is viewed first and foremost as an
activity of the mind, an activity that involves the use of a
transformation of various kinds of symbols and
systems of symbols. Individuals who wish to participate
meaningfully in artistic perception must learn to
decode, to "read" the various symbolic vehicles in
their culture; individuals who which to participate in
artistic creation must learn how to manipulate, how
to "write with" the various symbolic forms present in
their culture, and, finally, individuals who wish to engage
fully in the artistic realm must also gain mastery of certain
central artistic concepts. Just as one cannot assume that
individuals will – in the absence of support - learn to read and
write in their natural languages, so, too, it seems reasonable
to assume that individuals can benefit from assistance in
learning to "read" and "write" in the various languages of the
arts.”
Howard Gardner, Art Education and Human Development, p 9

Working with Clay

Women at the tomb
(Annie G.)
Jesus and
Mary Magdalene
(Elizabeth)
A man and a woman
(Essah)

Women and a man
(Martha)
Women and the angel
(Kumba)

Elizabeth’s mortars and bowl

Essah

On it Goes

Visual Literacy? Not yet.
Christmas 2012
Tell the story with the stickers.

Pictionary

So what? And now what?
What have you seen here?
Have you seen this in your classroom?
Is drawing a precursor to writing?
How can we use clay to teach symbolism?
Where do we go from here?

Sources
 Alland, A. (1983). Playing with Form. New York: Columbia Universtiy Press
 Brooks, M. (2002). Drawing to learn. Unpublished PhD thesis. Alberta: University of Alberta, Canada
Brooks, M. Drawing to Learn. In Narey, M. ed. (2009). Making Meaning: Constructing Multimodal
Perspectives of Language, Literacy, and Learning through Arts-based Early Childhood Education. New York:
Springer
 Camnitzer, L. (2009, Feb). Art and Literacy. e-flux. http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/42
 Camnitzer, L. (2009,Oct). Alphabetization, Part One: Protocal and Profieiency. http://www.e-
flux.com/journal/view/78
 Freeman, N. H. (1987) Children's drawings of human figures - The Oxford Companion to
Art, available, accessible, quite, real. Online: http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/890/children's-
drawings-human-figures.html
 Gardner, H. (1990). Art Education and Human Development. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Trust
 Hagood, M.H. (2000). The Use of Art in Counselling Child and Adult Survivors of Sexual Abuse. London:
Jessica Kingsley Publishing
 Kellogg, R. (1969). Analyzing Children's Art. Palo Alto, CA: National Press Books
 Lister, S, and Rosales, A. . The Kinetic-House-Tree-Person Adapted to Adults with Developmental
Disabilities. In Snow, S. and D'Amico, M. (2009). Assessment in the Creative Arts Therapies: Designing and
Adapting Assessment Tools for Adults with Developmental Disabilities. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas
Publishers
 Milbrath, C. & Trautner, H.M. eds. (2008). Children's Understanding and Production of Pictures, Drawings
& Art: Theoretical and Empirical Approaches. Cambridge, MA: Hogrefe
 Vygotsky, L.G. (1970). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Edited by
Cole, M., John-Steiner, V. Scribner, S. & Souberman, E. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Adult Literacy Students Draw
Jean Marrapodi
jmarrapodi@applestar.org
@jmarrapodi
401-440-61615