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| Arts Immersion Teacher Institutes
– Summer 2008 |
| Enrichment for Massachusetts
Teachers |
Arts Immersion Teacher Institutes were
held by three cultural organizations – the Berkshire
Museum, Worcester Art Museum, and Underground Railway
Theater – this summer. The institutes were open to all
teachers in Massachusetts.
Each institute focused on an “anchor work,” providing
educators the rare opportunity to
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work in depth
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explore the contexts and meanings of an exemplary work of art
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engage in criticism and art-making
- transfer experiences to their classrooms
 During
the institutes, each participant designed a 5-lesson
curriculum unit based on the knowledge and skills acquired,
which he or she then implemented in the classroom during
the fall. Each institute will reconvene to discuss participants'
experiences teaching the units and share student work.
The 2008 Arts Immersion Teacher Institutes:
Crewdson’s Untitled: An Exploration of Narrative
Berkshire Museum
39 South St., Pittsfield
June 30 – July 3 & July 10, 2008
Teachers (grades 3 - 12) explored contemporary photographer
Gregory Crewdson’s innovative approach to visual narrative
by focusing on Untitled. The institute included
in-depth discussions with the artist, hands-on artmaking
in photography, and study with scholars from the Guggenheim
and Berkshire Theater Festival, among others.
Elizabeth Clarke Freake and Baby Mary
Worcester Art Museum
55 Salisbury St., Worcester
August 11 – 15, 2008
Teachers experienced an intense examination of the painting
Elizabeth Freake and Baby Mary, painted by
an unidentified artist and considered the most important
painting created in colonial America in the late 17th
century. Scholars, art historians, conservators, a food
historian, and others guided an exploration of this
one painting—its style, dress, accessories, identity
as a pendant portrait, and visual depiction of mother
and child—to reveal the history, aesthetics, religion,
literary and relationship stories that it has to share.
Experiences included hands-on artmaking (in the studio
and the computer studio), creative writing, and a field
trip to Boston.
Looking at Galileo: A History Play for Our Times
Underground
Railway Theater, in residence at the new
Central Square Theater, 450 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge
August 11 – 15, 2008
Teachers engaged with theater artists, scientists and
historians in an inter-disciplinary exploration of Bertolt
Brecht’s science theater masterpiece, The Life of
Galileo. The institute examined questions that
cut across the curriculum: How does scientific discovery
affect our everyday lives? How do we know what we know
(or think we know)? How does this play reflect our world
today?
The institutes received funding as part of the MCC’s
Creative Minds initiative to expand arts education
and creative learning experiences for students statewide.
Guidelines and applications for 2009 institutes are
available here.
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