Resurrecting Artwork: A Guide to Acting Out Artwork with Children

By Susan H. McGuire

Resurrecting Artwork: A Guide to Acting Out Artwork with Children by Susan H. McGuire takes readers on a journey through an art museum, finding ways to spark children’s interest by making connections with the artwork. Paintings and sculpture come to life through employing creative drama and movement strategies.

Students in undergraduate and graduate programs in Museology will learn innovative methods for interpreting and understanding artwork through kinesthetic learning. Readers can benefit from McGuire’s thirty-five-plus years of experience exploring the philosophy behind creative arts in education, and object-based learning, in order to educate and to appreciate works of art.

The integration of the arts to teach history, language arts, math, and science enriches students and inspires them to find connections in their own lives and to express their own creativity. Portions of this book benefit museum administrators for tips on community outreach with grade-level assemblies in the schools, making connections with academic curriculum, and the importance of communication before students and teachers visit the museum.

While this book is indispensable for museum educators and docents, art teachers, theater educators, classroom teachers, parents, and grandparents will benefit from experimenting with some of the activities during their next visit to a museum.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646545353

Book preview

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Resurrecting Artwork

A Guide to Acting Out Artwork with Children

Susan H. McGuire

Copyright © 2020 Susan H. McGuire

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books, Inc.

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2020

ISBN 978-1-64654-534-6 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64654-535-3 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

A Visit Would Be Nice: Visiting Elementary Schools Prior to a Museum Tour

Keeping Your Ducks in a Row and Keeping in Touch: Organization and Communication

Come in, Little Dearies: Please Don’t Eat the ArtworkVisiting the Museum

The Grand Tour: Elementary Students Act Out Artwork

The Sky’s the Limit…Once You Know How to Fly!: Sample Activities for Specific Exhibitions

Wrap It Up; I’ll Take It: Completing the Museum Experience

Resurrecting Artwork: A Guide to Acting Out Artwork with Children

is dedicated in memory of

Barbara Goodwillie—

teacher, mentor, and friend.

Credit: Photograph by John A. McGuire

Introduction

When I was a child, my parents brought my brother and me to art and science museums, dance, theater, and music productions; and we were encouraged to participate in creative projects, as well as sports activities. It seems as though whatever city or country we traveled to, we were dragged to the local art galleries or museums. As a child, I’m sure that sometimes I protested at touring yet another institution where I was not allowed to touch, or even get too close to, the objects we were viewing; and yet the experiences that my parents exposed me to influenced me and enriched my life.

It’s not that I am a gifted or even skilled visual artist, but I love looking at all kinds of art, and I like being surrounded by artwork. My parents awakened my lifelong appreciation of visual arts, and they encouraged my enthusiasm for the creative process found in dance, music, writing, and drama. I married a talented painter, and although I cannot paint, I know what works and what I like in his paintings.

Also, playing with my daughters has always brought inspiration, clarity, and purpose to my life. When they were young, my daughters acted out artwork at local museums, striking poses and offering spoken thoughts for what characters in paintings and statues might be thinking or saying.

Over the past thirty-five years or so, a career has unfolded for me to use creative drama and movement to teach academic subjects and socialization skills to preschool children, elementary, middle school, high school, and college students, as well as adults. In January of 2004, I had the opportunity to work with museum administrators, docents, teachers, and students in order to enhance elementary school children’s experiences with the arts by employing creative drama strategies and movement activities.

My colleague and friend Barbara Goodwillie joined me on this journey, and together we developed and implemented a program for elementary students and their teachers, which incorporates drama and movement activities at an art museum. Soon after, dance teacher L’Ana Burton and I collaborated with dance and drama workshops for children touring the museum as well. All three of us share similar philosophies about working with children and allowing students time and space to explore their own creative abilities in a respectful, encouraging environment.

Visiting art museums and observing different types of artwork can be an intimidating, boring, and futile exercise in self-control, especially for schoolchildren on a field trip with their peers, but if the teacher or docent finds some creative drama or movement strategies to help engage students in meaningful and fun ways, then a trip to an art museum can be an enjoyable and stimulating learning experience; and since the experience is active or hands-on, students often leave remembering an activity, a piece of artwork, and often a feeling they experienced.

I found this to be true while giving tours of our local art museum for our area’s schoolchildren and their teachers. Assemblies were presented in participating schools with each grade level to introduce the students