Seeing with Scissors
Henri Matisse "The Snail, 1953" Materials
Making a color collage with scissors is a rich venture that can touch on the education of the whole child involving the body, the mind and the feelings. The action of cutting can become a more and more intentional pathway aligning the mind with the body and conversely the body with the mind. Cutting requires the use of two hands, a bilateral skill. It requires the eyes to direct the hand motions, a hand-eye task, as well as some directional sense, a visual perceptual task. Finally cutting requires precision, thereby improving fine motor dexterity.
Occasionally I use a master artist in my lesson as a focal point of reference and as a way to direct the attention through close observational work. For this lesson I introduced Henri Matisse and the intensely colored cut-out "The Snail" he made. Matisse is known for "drawing with scissors" and this essential work of his is very approachable by children. Intuitively arranged and with measured sensitivity, one feels this simple cut-out speaks directly to the power of shape,color and selection.
I encouraged many of my students to share not only what they see but where it is seen in the composition. This helps draw and direct the attention as we all look together in the same areas as well as support and expand verbally the expression of description. Prepositions are important because they work to connect various parts of a sentence and when combined with verbs, adjectives, and nouns communicate specific and precise meaning.
It seems to me that strength of purpose can be harnessed in the accuracy of these small acts of close looking and in building a more active intent. Pointing is their main form of sharing where something is and
demonstrates their own belief in thinking that I know where they are pointing. All my young students do this not just the ELLs. I ask them as we get started "Is that color you are describing at the top or the bottom? Is it next to the blue shape or near the corner?" I begin and they follow, and we try a few times because sometimes the pointing is just more ingrained and habitual. It is currently the easier pathway to communicate location.
