Drawing/Writing is an easy-to-use set of drawing and writing prompts.
Practiced by homeschooling parents and K-12 educators, and integrated into college art history curricula and adult literacy programs, this five-step process is a simple, proven way to teach writing and reading. Becoming skillful at drawing is An important benefit of this program is becoming great at drawing. Confidence in drawing can drive everything else.
Books
Susan Rich Sheridan, Ed. D. is the author of three books designed to help students of all ages grow as writers and readers.
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Drawing/Writing is a five-step lesson plan designed for easy use by parents and teachers.
THE NEW PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION CALLED MARKS AND MIND
For humans, marks create meaning. Using a finger or a stick, a child makes marks. Even though babbling might be though of as an early form of speech, it is not words. Words are learned. A child can continue to make marks that become drawings - with meaning - on their own. They can talk about their marks. They can tell you their story.
THE NEW SCIENCE OF EDUCATION CALLED NEUROCONSTRUCTIVISM.
The brain science supporting the philosophy Marks and Mind is Neuroconstructivism (SR Sheridan, date). The word “neuro” relates to neuron, nerves, sinews or cord, which is related to nervus meaning the nervous system, in this case, the human body/brain nervous system. The verb “construir” (Lat.construo, construere) means to pile up, to construct, or to build. Neuroconstructivism is brain-building. The idea of a new, or neo-neuroconstructivism (!) is suggested; this is a new science of human brain-building based on marks.
THE NEW PRACTICE OF EDUCATION CALLED DRAWING/WRITING.
The reason that we do not need to specify Literacy Education above is that Drawing/Writing can be used as a way to teach any discipline - architecture, science, ESL French, algebra, musical composition and so forth.
Marks and Mind is the name of a new educational field of study about what makes human beings different: marks of meaning-for instance, drawings, the written word, mathematical symbols, and musical notation.
The theory supporting this field is Neurocontructivism, or, literally, brain-building. This new, whole-brain educational field - as well as the term "Neuroconstructivism" - was invented by Susan Rich Sheridan, Ed. D over a lifetime of teaching art and English to students K-12, and at the college level. By combining drawing (a right-brain activity) with writing (a left-brain activity), teachers and students experience a densely integrated and deeply exciting approach to writing and reading, or literacy. Because drawing is a natural mark-making system for children, they embark upon the adventure of marks-based communication in a natural way, with ease and enthusiasm, as well as with increasing confidence. Drawing comes "for free" in the human brain. Speech, and reading and writing must to be learned.
This instructional approach, Drawing/Writing, is carefully outlined in the teacher manual Drawing/Writing and the New Literacy. The five-step program is also carefully outlined in Sheridan's other two books: Handmade Marks for parents and grandparents and early education teachers, and Saving Literacy, for educators, graduate students, and educational research. This step-by-step program is designed to be taught directly. A teacher new to Drawing/Writing simply works through the exercises with the students, using a carefully constructed script, which is fully illustrated.
For background information on Neurocontructivism as well as about the practice called Scribbling/Drawing/Writing, see Sheridan’s papers, “The Scribble Hypothesis,” and “A Theory of Marks and Mind.” Click on the titles to read the paper and to download them for free.
Whether your interest is homeschooling, ESL or TOFL education, early education, middle or high school education, college English or studio arts, prison literacy programs, LD and ADD, TAG or multicultural education, arts-based learning, lifelong learning, senior education and/or enrichment, this tightly organized drawing and writing practice provides invaluable teaching and learning tools. Because these tools combine a visual approach with a verbal approach, Drawing/Writing is not only an interdisciplinary procedure, but, by being so "brain-like," this program is integrative and creative. The student's own drawings quickly become more powerful through this instructional five-step - while still remaining personal. and highly individual.
No one in a Drawing/Writing class draws like anyone else. And they certainly do not draw like the teacher, who is drawing and writing along with them.
It is through these personal, powerful drawings that the student progresses into complex symbolic thought, including writing, reading, geometry, algebra — even into fractal mathematics. Uniquely, humans learn to represent thoughts outside their brains, and, then, to share them, using marks of meaning, and, of course, through spoken words, or speech.
The New Literacy describes an extended range of drawing, writing and reading skills, including computer literacy.
We can learn all to move beyond scribbles to powerful drawing skills and also to stronger writing skills and reading skills. In a sense, these expanded mark-making skills are our birthright, just as scribbling and drawing are birthrights. We are born being able to scribble and draw. These natural abilities may, with training, become other expressions of meaningful marks, both concrete and abstract: words, mathematical symbols, musical notation. Even so-called ‘learning disabled’ students can acquire writing and reading skills much more easily through drawing. Drawing is usually easy for these students. To start with the easy skill is simply a smart way to build more difficult skills.
To an unprecedented degree, a technological society requires communication skills. The ability to produce image as well as text is standard in this information-rich world. Dr. Sheridan calls these complex skills "the new literacy." Children's natural drawing skills are often marginalized or misunderstood - even more so, their scribbling. Technology's requirements for a comprehensive visual/verbal literacy (including computer language skills) forces us to take a deeper look at children's spontaneous mark-making, including very young children's scribbling and drawing. Scribbling is the place where literacy - in all its variety and scope - begins. Dr. Sheridan's books provide a deeper look at children's mark-making, recognizing it as the place where writing and reading begin, including computer literacy.
Being able to write and read depend upon core skills - including the ability to pay attention, and to communicate ideas, and to express emotions. These skills can be learned easily through training in drawing. Drawing is a universal skill. Everyone can draw. No one teaches us how. Drawing is a language instinct. Drawing can, however, be taught in such a way that it becomes more powerful, more expressive, more communicative. Learning to draw powerfully and personally gives children - and adults - more confidence, and a stronger ability to focus, in turn, increasing brain-power, or intelligence.
When talking and writing accompany drawing, verbal skills grow. A two-fold literacy develops, both visual and verbal. This “new literacy " is as old as paleolithic cave drawings and as new as computer technology. As language-users, humans have two unique characteristics: speech, and marks of meaning. Speech begins with babbling. Literacy begins with scribbling. Scribbles are equipotential: they can become anything: drawing, writing, mathematics, musical notation, computer programming.
The number of symbol systems any of us can learn depends upon opportunity, encouragement and instruction - thus, on our parents, our teachers, our environment, and our culture. Ultimately, it depends upon our brains and how we use them. It depends on simple tools, like pencil and paper.
Neurologically speaking, literacy is visual/verbal; it is both. The corpus callosum, a nerve-rich band of tissue bissecting the brain, connects the right and left hemispheres. This connective tissue creates a complex, cooperative unity; it is visual/verbal. Drawing/Writing (the method of delivery for the new literacy) models integrated brain function. It works like the corpus callosum by intentionally combining drawing with writing.
The more mark-making systems we use, the more powerfully we think. Multiple literacies should be our goal. A brain full of symbol systems is our birthright.
