A Gallery Walk in American Wilderness

The first week of school was met with the usual jitters and excitement. My school had its debut of a gorgeous new renovated space with more glass, nooks, and crannies than I can properly do it justice. It's a flexible space, and the opportunities seem endless.

This year, I started my American Wilderness with the Imagine Our Parks with Poems project. The project "...commissioned fifty poets to write poems about a park in each of the fifty states. This project is part of Imagine Your Parks, a grant initiative from the National Endowment for the Arts created in partnership with the National Park Service to support projects that use the arts to engage people with the memorable places and landscapes of the National Park System."

My idea was students could canvas a large portion of the United States, seeing various states of wilderness and the state's identity. Using these poems as mentor texts, my hope was students would utilize their Writer's Notebook starting day one.

Three days in, we examined the Connecticut poem Weir Farm by Marilyn Nelson. As the author notes, "...Weir Farm is the only national park dedicated to American painting and to the rediscovery of the beauty of light and color in everyday life.” I took this idea and decided to turn our newly redesigned L Space into a little mini art gallery.

After reading and discussing the poem, students received their task: Go to a painting that is around the room. Write about it. What can you see? What can you not see? Can you imagine what’s there? Be sure to use imagery (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste).

It was nice to see students walking around and look at the various art work. The art work didn't matter as much as the sheer variety. Across the 30 or so pictures, I had a blend of landscapes, sculptures and abstracts (c/o my wonderful art department).

What I was surprised about was how students used the space as if it was an art museum. I saw students reduce themselves to a whisper as they examined Georgia O'Keefe and discussed with reverence the flamingo in John James Audubon's piece.

Afterwards, students grouped up with others who didn't use the same painting. A second gallery walk occurred. Here, I too participated and admired a student's use of "boxy" language in his interpretation of the Broadway Boogie Woogie.

I Love: 
My students' interaction with art work in the form of poetry.

I Wonder:
I'm starting to wonder how art work might be utilized in other forums. Finding ways to interact with art and other mediums might be a key to utilizing our new space. It might also help with setting norms.

Link to my mentor text and task sheet.

Daniel Valentin teaches American Wilderness, Ethics, and English 9 at Horace Greeley High School. He is currently reading The Testaments, and listening to Body of Proof. He wants his students to feel empowered through books. Follow him @DaValentinCCSD
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1. title picture credited to ctvisit.com