UNIVERSITY OF THESSALYVOLOS, GREECE

Georgia Pantidou, Maria Paparoussi, George Sotiropoulos

Integrating Information and Communication Technologiesin teaching Poetry and Arts

in Secondary Education

I.C.T. can be a powerful tool to perceive and

teach Poetry in new, attractive and

meaningful ways. The use of hypermedia and

multimedia, in which sound, picture and

speech merge into an amalgam, guarantees

the attraction of children’s interest.

I.C.T. offers the means for the integration of Poetry, Literature, Music

and Painting into an attractive combination which makes teaching

procedure more pleasant and opens new perspectives on

interpretation.

The activation of every sense which takes place in the artistic

atmosphere created in the classroom leaves wonderful memories in

children’s minds and enhances aesthetic experience and further

dealing with Art in general.

Sound and picture ought to be used as functional components and

not just ornamental, as a tool to perceive and understand the text

through the rules and techniques of other arts (Kalogirou, 2000),

as a pictorial representation of the text or an intercourse between

students and texts through perceiving and constructing

multimodal texts.

A multimodal approach to teaching Literature would focus on

making good use of other semiotic systems besides Language,

since every mode adds a different meaning into the multimodal

version of a text (Nicolaidou, 2009) and thus its polysemy is being

highlighted (Hondolidou, 1999).

•Offering audiovisual content and useful information

• aiming at reading poetry via paintings

•visualising poetic inspiration and conception and

•combining words and verses with images

facilitate approach and intimacy with Poetry.

Multimedia presentations point out aspects of imagery, music and

internal rhythm of the text. The discourse between the Arts can be

the essential means to integrate ICT in teaching Arts in general

(Nikolaidou, 2009).

Creating presentations, videos or digital narrations, paintings

or collages using pictures and music of their choice is an

exceptionally attractive and creative task for the students.

The inherent creativity of the children, dominated by

imagination and feelings, finds a proper outlet in Poesis, the

Greek word for Creation.

Subsequently creative thinking is enhanced and the aesthetic

pleasure is conducted to artistic creation or simply more

Literature reading.

“Under the midday summer sun”

Teaching Proposal

•A poem by Odysseus Elytis “Down in the daisy’s small threshing floor”,

•a short story by Alexandros Papadiamantis “Theros-Eros” (Summer - Love),

•three paintings by Vincent Van Gogh “Siesta”, “Wheatfield with a reaper” and “Field with poppies”,

•a collection of paintings by D. Moraros, based on “Theros-Eros”

•a piece of classical music by Antonio Vivaldi, “L’ estate”,

•John Markopoulos’ song “Down in the daisy’s small threshing floor”.

First Task:

Students listen carefully to Vivaldi’s “L’

estate-Le quattro stagioni” and try to

discriminate the several sounds the composer

used to describe summer in the country. Then

they check their assumptions reading the

description of the piece and the

corresponding summer sonet at http://www.makingmusicfun.net/htm/f_mmf_music_library/hey-kids-meet-a

ntonio-vivaldi.htm

.

Second Task:

The students search for Van Gogh’s paintings

and save them in a file. Since Van Gogh had

a great concern about the use of colour,

students are asked to visit the website

http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/

and choose Art Theory in order to find two

letters of Van Gogh in which he explains his

choices about the summer motif.

A pictorial theme which has been traditional in Western European art

for many centuries is that of the four seasons. These are generally

represented in terms of the various kinds of crops, weather, and

labours undertaken by peasants, typical of the different phases of the

year (Walker, 1981).

Thus students study and take notes about the place, the time, the

human beings and their actions, the colours, the schemes and the

aspects. (For further information about Impressionism and Light

several articles can be suggested as well as an educational film about

Impressionism and Surrealism). The task can be finished with a

virtual tour in Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam

http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/vgm/index.jsp?lang=en

Third task:

Students are given the poem and the short story and they are

asked to write down the images Elytis and Papadiamantis have

used. We are more interested in the colours and the schemes

of the nouns (either human beings or nature elements).

They will discover that the tones of the colours mentioned in

the poem are the same with Van Gogh’s and that there are

two prevailing schemes, cycle (threshing floor, sun) and

moving lines (water surface, flames, grainstalks) which are

used as symbolisms to the masculine and the feminine

element in nature.

So they are expected to combine all this in order to

decode the hidden message of the poem:

the erotic mood of young girls in midday, the magical

time of the day, when the Sun culminates and Earth

receives all the heating energy, is represented by the

description of the Nature.

In “Theros-Eros” by Papadiamantis (1891) Nature and Love are also the main theme. Nature is not only the scenery but it is closely connected to the twist of the plot.

Love, as a manifestation of nature’s force, is contrasted with the rush of natural elements (Zamarou, 2000).

The word Theros in Greek means summer and reaping so the students are expected to find similarities with Van Gogh’s painting and Vivaldi’s composition (serenity-storm-serenity).

The final product can be the synthesis of the

motifs they have traced in music pieces,

paintings, poetry and literature in a functional

unit.

So, what could students possibly do with all

this stuff in their computers?

The pursuit of the Arts is always an interesting

and attractive thing to do while in

adolescense, enhancing aesthetic and

emotional refinement as well as “poetic

intellect”.

According to Elytis «One should probably not

be very intelligent to understand Poetry. It is

enough if you can have poetic intellect, which

means more emotion than knowledge».

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