Hello Williston Parents and Caregivers,
I am happy to introduce myself as your student’s visual art teacher here at WCS! While I was lucky to meet many of you during the open house event, in case we did not connect or we just didn’t have the chance to chat, here is a tiny bit about me... I grew up in Williston and had art in the same classroom that I am teaching in! I taught art at CVU for 18 years before coming to WCS. I graduated from UVM with a post-baccalaureate degree in Art Education following my degree there in Recreation Management and years working in that field at Catamount Outdoor Family Center. I recently got my Master’s of Education from Southern New Hampshire University. My personal values are connected to relationships, nature and creativity. I take great pleasure in learning, teaching, being outdoors, spending time with my family... and, of course, making and looking at art!
Students learned a LOT about visual literacy and visual art techniques - check out the word bank below to see how much they were exposed to! This year my focus for assessment was the Create standard as well as the Responsible & Involved Citizenship standard. We also had practice with the Response, Connect, and Present standards though these were not formally assessed.
Your student should be bringing (or has recently brought) home their art portfolio. I hope you will be able to look through it together and have some great conversations. You will notice that students did a lot of smaller exercises to build understanding and skills. Some of the smaller exercises were collaborative works and may still be up in the hallways (e.g. the mandala, birds drawing) and these won’t make it home (they are on shared pieces of paper). Students spent a longer period of time on three select works. From these three, they were asked to select ONE work to be shared for display either in the school hallways, or an upcoming art show. Be sure to ask them about that work as it is likely the one they liked best! This piece will stay safe with me until after the display is done, and will be returned at that time. I will notify students and families if a piece will go on display at an art show with details about that opportunity as it arises. If you wish to request that artwork be returned earlier, please contact me.
Please feel free to reach out to me anytime. I value your feedback and look forward to answering your questions. It may be easiest to email me at: abowker@cvsdvt.org
All the best,
Ms. Bowker
