Summer SAVY 2016 (Session 1, Day 3) – In the Mind’s Eye: Truth vs. Perception

Posted by hallep on Wednesday, June 15, 2016 in Grade 5, Grade 6, SAVY.

 We had a great day today in Truth Vs. Perception! The students had the chance to show off their creativity in a few different ways. We started our day by making display posters for the results of our inkblot tests—everyone was able to design their own method for conveying their findings, which led to a really interesting range of posters! We look forward to showing them off in the Open House.

 Later in the morning, we built on yesterday’s discussion of artistic interpretation, perception, and truth by reading another short story, Guy Maupassant’s “The Necklace.” This story deals with the false perceptions associated with extreme materialism, and also reflects the ways in which the value of objects can be dependent on the viewpoints of their possessors or beholders. We wrapped up our look at the short stories with a writing project: students either did a creative exercise, rewriting either short story from a different perspective or their practiced their analytical writing, discussing times in history when the status quo has been used as a justification for resisting cultural change. Both prompts produced some really thoughtful and interesting work!

 In the afternoon, we took a field trip to the Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery, where we saw two exhibits, one of pastoral landscape paintings and the other of a collection of unique objects from a range of places and times. After we took a look around both galleries, students got to focus on the pieces that captured their interest, writing reflections on the connections between the pieces and concepts we’ve been discussing. I was so impressed by their insights—it was really cool that we were able to help each other appreciate new aspects of each piece we discussed.

 As we move into the second half of the week, we are working on mapping our keywords to give students an opportunity to explore relationships among our central concepts. We got started at the end of the day today, and they had a ton of enthusiasm—I look forward to seeing where they go with their posters tomorrow!