Friday, October 19, 2018, from 8:45 am to 2:15 pm

Bringing the Museum into the World Language Classroom:

A Content-based Professional Development Workshop

In this two-part workshop, presenters will discuss and model strategies for integrating art and poetry into the world language curriculum in order to increase the level and frequency of class participation. An emphasis will be placed on CUNY’s role in supporting content-based learning in grades 7-16 and beyond. There will be a live student demonstration.

The workshop is sponsored by: the Department of Romance Languages, Hunter College, CUNY; The School of Arts and Sciences, Hunter College, CUNY; The School of Education, Hunter College, CUNY; ACERT, Hunter College, CUNY; The Teaching and Learning Center, the Graduate Center, CUNY; Ministero degli affari esteri (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Italy); Istituto Italiano di Cultura, New York; The Calandra Italian American Institute; American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI); Società Dante Alighieri of New York; and Pearl River High School.

PART 1:

Introductory remarks by:
Robert Cowan, Acting Assistant Dean for Program Development, Assessment, and Review, Hunter College; Professor of English, Kingsborough Community College

Roberto Dolci, Scholar in Residence, John D. Calandra Italian American Institute

Michael Taormina, Associate Professor of French, Chair of the Romance Languages Department, Hunter College

“Secondary educators and college instructors: promising prospects for a fruitful collaboration”: Monica Calabritto (Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY) will open the day by speaking about content-based learning and opportunities for collaboration between educators at the secondary and university levels.

Live demonstration: Kelly Paciaroni, Italian Teacher and Ph.D. candidate in the Comparative Literature Department (Italian Specialization) at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and her students from Pearl River High School will model some of their favorite classroom activities which draw upon material studied by the instructor during her time as a CUNY MA student. Attendees will have the opportunity to see language learners engaging in spontaneous discourse in a student-centered classroom with the teacher merely serving as guide. This session will focus on the intersection of portraiture, experiential learning, project-based learning, and Socratic learning as a means of generating spontaneous discourse in the content-based world language classroom. Students at all levels will be shown interacting with works of art in order to: analyze and express opinions about the works, generate hypotheses, organically introduce new vocabulary, engage in conversations, and create original poetry based on their research. Along with their instructor, students will also interact with Monica Calabritto, who will discuss portraiture and lead students in a close examination of a famous portrait, and Julie Van Peteghem (Hunter College, CUNY), who will speak about the accessibility of the Petrarchan sonnet in the world language classroom. The session will close with students presenting original Petrarchan sonnets inspired by works of art currently on display in New York City. Examples will be in Italian, but all slides will include subtitles and verbal translations will be provided when necessary.

Panel discussion: Attendees will direct their questions about the activities presented to Prof. Calabritto, Prof. Van Peteghem, and Ms. Paciaroni. All participants will receive a certificate of attendance and a copy of the projects presented for use in their own classrooms. Lunch will be provided after the panel discussion.

PART 2:

Angelique Aristondo, Sarah Litvin, and Elissa Myers, Ph.D. candidates from the Museum Pedagogy Research Team at the Teaching and Learning Center, the Graduate Center, CUNY, and Rebecca Raitses and Kelly Paciaroni, Ph.D. candidates at the Graduate Center, CUNY,  will lead small groups in a one-hour classroom activity designed for teachers of all world languages.