Art+History+in+Books

=//The First Starry Night// by Joan Shaddox Isom=



The Fiirst Starry Night Sample Pages

**Summary**
The First Starry Night by Joan Shaddox Isom is a beautifully illustrated fictional picture book that tells the story of the life of one of the most famous and influential artists in the history of art: Vincent Van Gogh. The book tells a story about a fictitious character, a boy named Jacques, who develops a friendship with the very eccentric artist Vincent Van Gogh. Despite the warnings and reservations of his adult guardian because of Van Gogh’s reputation for unstable emotions and erratic behavior, Jacques and Vincent develop a healthy and supportive relationship that is compared to brotherhood. The story and dialog of their friendship presents an accurate account of the life and artistic style of Van Gogh. The perspective and tolerance of Van Gogh’s friend paints a compassionate picture of Vincent Van Gogh, that celebrates his diversity as a unique individual, which also contributed to the beauty and originality of his paintings. The underlying theme, or big idea of the story was the recognition and admiration of the unique and passionate perspective that Van Gogh had towards life and how he expressed that perspective in his paintings, which were never sold during his lifetime because of how unconventional they were at that time. The reader is made aware of the fact that although the art of Vincent Van Gogh was too different to be appreciated or understood in his lifetime, that his friend Jacques appreciated it, just as it has become appreciated today as some of the most highly regarded and influential art in the entire history of western art.

By emphasizing the importance of appreciating the uniqueness of Van Gogh's art and uniqueness as an individual, The First Starry Night teaches the value of recognizing and appreciating the differences of the people we encounter in our daily lives. The darker side to Van Gogh's life, including his mental illness is referenced in a very subtle manor, appropriate for P-5 children, again highlighting the color of his life as it contributes to the uniqueness and brilliance of his art and use of color. This engaging story not only teaches art history in a manor that allows students to make connections to what they are learning, but it also is very engaging story, that provides an excellent opportunity for teaching literacy. The First Starry Night provides a wonderful opportunity for teaching students to read while learning about one of the most significant artists in art history, and about the use of color as an element of art.

**About the Author** Joan Shaddox Isom is an author who refers to herself as an avid reader who also writes. She graduated from the University of Arkansas with an MFA. Joan Shaddox Isom has written numerous books for which she is the recipient of numerous awards. She was a former assistant professor of English at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma, and was artist/writer-in residence for the Arts Council of Oklahoma. In addition to The First Starry Night, Joan Shaddox Isom is the author of several other books including "Offerings in the Snow: A Christmas Story", ".Foxgrapes: Poems of the Plains and the People", and "The Leap Years: Women Reflect on Change, Loss and Love" She has also written numerous short works and has been published in a long list of anthologies. Her awards include:  best in all categories  Writers Competition 2005  Northeastern State University This information was obtained from her website, which also provides a variety of other professional and personal information:
 * Oklahoma Literary Award for Fiction
 * Pegasus Award (Best poetry collection by an Oklahoman)
 * Crème de la crème, Oklahoma Writers Federation,
 * Plays, Inc. (Boston), award for one-act play
 * Indian Historian Award Nominee (Oklahoma)
 * Short story included in top ten, storySouth’s One-Million
 * Sigma Tau Delta Faculty Appreciation Award

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The following video embedded from You Tube, which provides images of the Colorful Paintings of Vincent Van Gogh in sync with the song "Vincent" written and recorded by Don McClean, demonstrates how beautiful, and engaging it can be to experience the art of "Vincent" Van Gogh. This video is intended for an audience of adults, as an example of the "Van Gogh Experience" and is not a suggested as an age appropriate video for P-5 students, due to the explicit reference to his suicide. The lyrics and vocabulary of the song and images in this video could be an excellent resource however, but it would need to be used only with the contingency that the video could be stopped at two minutes and seventeen seconds,

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">media type="youtube" key="nkvLq0TYiwI?fs=1" height="385" width="480"-

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">This book does not have any extra or special features, with the exception that the quality of the illustrations could possibly be considered a special feature. Although the illustrations are exceptionally beautiful, it is worth noting that, with one exception, the images are based on a fictitious story and consequently are not actual representations of Vincent Van Gogh paintings. The extraordinary effect or aesthetic experience commonly associated with viewing some of Vincent Van Gogh's paintings can not be duplicated by stylistic interpretations of similar illustrations. It is therefore my recommendation that actual Van Gogh Prints be presented to students as an additional component of any lesson plan based on this book. There are multiple ways to obtain prints for free (when permitted by some websites) or at a very low cost. One way to obtain twelve prints of a famous artist is to purchase a calendar featuring the artist of your choice after the holiday season is over.
 * S<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">pecial Features **

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">This book is beautifully illustrated with impressionist style images. One benefit of the visual quality of this book is that it is likely to be extremely engaging because of it's visual impact. Visual learners would benefit significantly because of the appeal of the images. The content of the book, which is art history, emphasizes the value of, and encourages "risk taking" as a necessary procedural approach to creativity and learning. In classroom environments that are frequently non-supportive of genuine expression and engaging in challenging activities due to a fear and culture of unacceptability of mistakes, the moral f the Van Gogh story provides an opportunity to counter the "fear of mistake culture". The willingness and degree of effort students expend in writing activities other than, and beyond the graphic organizer (when they need to create their own structure) can be potentially supported by identifying with the extreme visual beauty and skill that resulted from Van Gogh's endeavorers in visual art. Although this book is not written at a fourth or fifth grade level. the benefit of facilitating independence and challenging self initiated writing strategies make it worthy of utilization in both intermediate and primary grades.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">Literacy Procedures and Attitudes: Challenges and Creativity **


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">CREATIVITY AND MISTAKES; MAKING A MISTAKE BECOMES A BIG BREAK **

A<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;"> video on Jackson Pollack is included in this WIKI as the perfect example of how the creativity fostered by the arts makes it possible to gain the inherent benefit of the mistakes we all too often avoid. The video is on the ART: Mistakes make the big breaks page of this WIKI.

In ART MISTAKES MAKE THE BIG BREAKS

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;"> This book has a power connection to semantics. The descriptions of Van Gogh's paintings require the use of strong and uncommonly used adjectives and phrases. The originality of visual imagery and intensity of colors challenges a writer to learn new vocabulary words, and to develop strategies for applying prior vocabulary knowledge in new ways, In the writing genre of art criticism for example, the first sentence of the paragraph begins with "In this painting by___, I see (the subject. There is a very specific format that transitions to descriptions of color, (or some element of art in core content) mood, purpose etc). This genre is taught, when schools have an art and humanities program, in the fourth and fifth grades.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">COMPONENT CONNECTIONS OF LITERACY **

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;"> The skill of comprehending using mental images, and writing to create mental images could not be more amenable to the application of responses to Vincent Van Gogh Paintings. Opinion pieces based on descriptive facts would provide opportunities to challenge students to apply existing skills to a greater degree (more description) and push and inspire higher ordered thinking. The sample pages link at the top of this age provides examples of the vocabulary used by the author to describe these vivid and brilliant visual images, A good starting point would be two word work lessons, one where students would search for adjectives that describe visual images and then analyze how and why those words are effective (or why they are difficult to understand. A second lesson could involve havng students use word banks or pull from prior knowledge of vocabulary words and semantics to restate or improve the description.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;"> The use of a thesaurus and word banks with both familiar and unfamiliar words to choose from to describe s specific painting, with the added expectation of considering alliteration to capture how they see and feel a work of art (Van Gogh) would be another approach to building on the connection to visual art and literacy through the component of semantics. An ultimate objective of these lessons would be to realize the potential of arts integration by connection visual conceptualization and even art making to the visual imagery of language that facilitates higher order thinking involved in learning and developing creative writing skills.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">The concepts of print in this book (except for the dedication statement) do not reveal an obvious main idea. An aspect of the relationship between characters, the meaning or purpose of art, or the appreciation of diversity are all themes that are repeated in the story. Although it was not the initial literacy component that I identified while analyzing this book, it did occur to me that an activity (I would envision as a group activity) of identifying important facts and using strategies to determine the main idea would be a major exercise in the development of reading comprehension skills.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">A lesson plan that I would personally be most inclined to want to plan and implement would be for student to create their own drawing (realistic, abstract, or even non objective) and apply the vocabulary skills they have learned in word work activities using adjectives to describe Van Gogh paintings to describe their own image.