Student Yoni Garcia (center) discusses his success with the Picturing Writing technique during the annual CELL conference at Mount Saint Mary College. On the right is his mentor, Nicole Sibiski, an English as a New Language (ENL) teacher at the Ossining Union Free School District.
The 29th Annual Conference on Literacy, “Celebrating Our Many Languages,” brought dozens of educators to Mount Saint Mary College to explore how the complexities of language can be harnessed to improve the learning experience.
The conference, hosted by the college’s Collaborative for Equity in Literacy Learning (CELL), featured two keynote speakers and many workshops.
As the second keynote speaker took the stage, many attendees of “The Art of Writing” workshop – which focused on the Picturing Writing literacy technique – stayed behind, enthralled by the presenters from Ossining Union Free School District: Nicole Sibiski, an English as a New Language (ENL) teacher, and Jessica Turner, executive director for Student Support.
Picturing Writing has worked wonders in her high school classroom, explained Sibiski. For her students, many of whom are in their first few months living in the United States, the technique has supercharged their English studies.
“As [the students’] artwork continued to evolve, and their stories were being shared, it was hard to get them to put their brushes and their crayons down,” she said. “The bell would ring, and they were still working. The art transferred into their English essay writing.”
To a casual observer, Picturing Writing might look like an art class. However, the technique is in fact a dynamic art-and-literature-based approach to writing designed to meet the literacy needs of all students, particularly those with diverse learning styles.
“Art is universal,” said Turner. “It doesn’t matter what language you speak.”
Through the use of hands-on art experiences, the study of quality picture books, and an ongoing artist/writers workshop, Picturing Writing gives students access to multiple modalities for thinking and expressing their ideas. It can be used to address English language arts core standards in a way that reaches a wide range of students.
For Sibiski and Turner, two of those students were Yoni Garcia and Norma Alexandra. At the workshop, Garcia and Alexandra shared their experiences and discussed how the Picturing Writing technique helped them to discover their literary voice through the power of art.
“Our students felt so empowered to tell their stories and share their culture,” Turner explained. “I can’t tell you how much this empowered our students to have a vehicle to share their story, because their picture was the segue to the writing.”
Sibiski echoed Turner’s sentiment: “Once upon a time, the students didn’t feel like they had this opportunity,” she said. “Now these students have presented at school board meetings and conferences. Now they see that the sky is the limit.”
CELL hosts a Picturing Writing workshop on the Mount campus nearly every summer. Mount Education professors Janine Bixler and Rebecca Norman teach the technique over the course of about a week, bringing Picturing Writing to dozens of local educators and teacher candidates each year.
Established in 2012, CELL provides tutoring and out-of-school literacy activities for children pre-school to grade 12 with a focus on reading, conversation, and activities. It explores multicultural books, offers family literacy programs, and more. Each semester, Mount teacher candidates, graduate and undergraduate, help instill a love of reading in local youth as part of their community fieldwork requirement.