Kids Share Workshops
Connecting Kids Worldwide through Writing, Art & Photography
Union Elementary, Children's Narrative Writing Project
(Pictured below from left to right, Jim, Roger, Newton, Mrs. Kelly and the fourth grade students.)
Mr.Newton Baker, (PFC) Unbeatable Newton, instructed the fourth grade Union Elementary students in an expressive, narrative writing project through Portraits for Charity's™ first workshop. The students completed a Superheroes portrait in honor of their classmate Ash Brittenham. It was an enriching experience for the students to hear different possibilities, ideas, sharing thoughts and brainstorming together. The result was very empowering and educating for all. Students listened to classmates ideas, made lists and borrowed from each other. The result aided the efforts of students across a variety of writing abilities. Following are some samples from the students narrative writing workshop assisted by Mr. Newton Baker, Leader of Writing Workshops throughout Vermont.
Anna's Narrative Writing
On Monday, March 7th, Kristina A Lutes, artist, walked into Mrs. Kelley's 4th grade classroom and told us how to paint tissue paper. After an hour of messes and mayhem, she collected our masterpieces. What a variety! There were dabbed pieces, sponged pieces, and even dripped pieces. There were red, blue, green, yellow, purple, white, black, and any other color you can think of! Kristina picked the pieces that she liked best to fit the portraits needs and cut out shapes of shirts, pants, wheelchair and more. Then she glued the pieces onto a sketch of Ash, Mrs. Kelley, and William.
Ash has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a condition that weakens the muscles. The money from selling poster copies of the portrait will go to research for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. We worked very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, VERY hard on our pieces and Kristina said that each one of us would have a piece in the portrait. Kristina brought the portrait in and showed us. We were soooooooo excitedly thrilled. She showed it to us and we just died. We all ran over to it pointing out our piece, exclaiming at its realness, and smiling.
Kristina is a mother, a painter, and an artist. She's a lover of art. She lives on a farm. Kristina has lots of ideas, like a brightly colored light bulb. She's creative and RADICAL. She has a lot of FEELING.
Kristina A. Lutes. Let's see. I bet her middle name is "Amazing," cause that's what the awesome artist is!
Splish, Splash
Crash, Smash
Flippy, floppy, full of life
Whip, Slap
Snap, Whap
Colored hand prints on the page
Kristina, Kristina, Kristina
Radical in color
Inspiring for learning minds
Silent in silence
Too true, too true
Inspiration yet again
Never ending happiness
Amazing Lutes
Radical in color
Inspiring for learning minds
Silent in silence
Too true, too true
Inspiration yet again
Never ending happiness
Amazing Lutes
Willow's Narrative Writing
Mrs. Kelley's class was bent over their papers. Their test was almost over when the door flew open and in stepped the artist they had met a couple weeks before. With her was a man dressed in black with a black strange looking object.
The class jumped out of their seats and ran to the circle area where the artist, Kristina Applegate Lutes and the man dressed in black were already standing.
"Hello," said Kristina, "I'm here to show you what I have so far." She reached behind her and unzipped a long, black bag. The children gasped as Kristina took out a dazzling painting of Ash, a student in their class, reading his published book, "The Adventures of Superman." In the portrait, Spiderman hovers behind him with their teacher, Mrs. Kelley, and another student standing in the background.
The students stared from the Ash in the painting to the real Ash standing right next to them and gasped at the similarities. "You are truly an artist," the students all said!
Kristina smiled and introduced the man in black. "This is Mr. Crowley," she said. He is sound recording and taking pictures."
"Oh," said all the students, "that's what the black thing is!"
As Kristina talked, the children remembered when she had come before. She had told them about raffling off a portrait for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Muscular Dystrophy is a condition that weakens the muscles. Our fellow student, Ash, was diagnosed with it.
Kristina went on to say how wonderful and helpful the children had been. For each child had painted tissue paper and given it to Kristina who had used it in her collage portrait based on a photo taken by Mr. Crowley. Kristina smiled at the bright faced children and said, "But now comes the part of the project where we sell copies of the original painting and advertise them."
The children started talking excitedly. Would they make advertising posters? Would they get to talk in the assembly? Would they have their pictures in the Union News? Meanwhile, Mr.Crowley was getting it all through his tape recorder.
A couple days later, Mrs. Kelley addressed the students. "Kristina Lutes asked me to make a list of where to sell the posters, but I need your help." The children pushed in their chairs and walked to the meeting area where Mrs. Kelley had a marker and a clean piece of paper ready. A student asked, "When will we get the posters?"
Mrs. Kelley answered that Ash's mom, Kim, would bring them in as soon as she could. So the children and Mrs.Kelley began making a list of places to sell. A few days later Mrs.Kelley told the excited crew that two of their fellow classmates had written a small speech about the sale of the portrait and she would break the class into small groups. The groups got to go to classes and deliver the speech to the students and teacher! Everyone was very eager and they took with anticipating hands the papers that Mrs. Kelley had printed the speech on.
After every class had received a speech, Mrs. Kelley gave her students their advertising posters and told them to tape them up around the school. Everyone felt very excited and happy.
Soon the class was getting many requests for their beautiful portrait. It was not long until only a few remained. And at Woodbury Mountain Toys and Parent Project they were also selling out extremely fast.
Their work with Kristina Lutes, Mr. Crowley, and Newton Baker, who helped with the writing part, would soon be over. But, the wonderful experience would remain in their hearts forever!
Maya's Narrative Writing One day, three people burst into my classroom! They interrupted math class. They each introduced themselves to us. There was Mr. Baker, Mr. Crowley, and Mrs. Lutes. "Do you guys know why we are here," Mr. Baker asked? We all shook our heads, no. They explained that they were here to help with our Kids Care Project. We got all excited! We were going to do a portrait of Ash, a student in my class with Mrs. Lutes being the artist, Mr. Crowley doing sound and pictures, and Mr. Baker doing the writing with us. We were going to raise money for Muscular Dystrophy, a muscle disorder. Ash has it himself.
A few days later, we got started. Paint flying everywhere, paint brushes dabbing, brushing across the vellum paper! Sparkles glittering and toothbrushes splattering! We had begun painting! It was so much fun! We mixed colors and made hand prints and finger prints! When we all had painted at least one vellum paper and put our initials on it, we were done painting.
About 6 days later, Mrs. Lutes came back and showed us the sketch of Ash in his wheelchair reading "Adventures of Super Max," a book he published. Behind him was Spiderman, pointing his fingers out. We all loved it! Mrs.Lutes, we found out, was a great artist! Ash looked very realistic! Spiderman looked almost exactly like he does in the comics, too!
Are you wondering what painting on tissue paper has to do with anything? Well, I can answer that! Mrs. Lutes takes the tissue paper, which is a sort of tracing paper, and traces the part of the sketch she wants to put that particular piece of tissue paper on. Then she cuts it out and pastes it on! It's that easy!
Another week passed and she came back. But she didn't come by herself.There were reporters from Channel 3 News. Reporters from The Bridge newspaper too! My favorite part of that day was when Mrs. Lutes flipped over the finished portrait of Ash with all the tissue paper on it. As she flipped it over, everyone went into"wows" and "cool." We all had a lot of questions to ask. One of the questions was how long did it take her altogether? "Twenty two hours," said Mrs. Lutes. "about three or four hours each day." We were soooooooo excited about how little time it took her to do it!
Then she told Ash he could keep the original portrait because he was the one in it. Our class got 250 copies of Ash's portrait donated as posters by a printing company because they knew we were doing it to raise money for scientists who are right now in the process of finding a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
My class divided into three different groups. One group was writing a note for the school bulletin. Another group wrote a notice for the teachers' newsletter. The last group worked together to design posters to hang around the school. There were also posters for people to buy at Woodbury Mountain Toys, from my classroom, and Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy.
The group that had written a notice for the teachers' newsletter actually didn't end up putting it in the newsletter. Mrs. Kelley decided to use the same thing they wrote but divided the class into 3-sections and had each group read it out loud to individual classes in the school. It was sooooo fun!
On the 8th of April Mrs.Lutes came back to our classroom. I just had to miss it because I was on a vacation. But I did hear what they were going to do. Well, when I was still in school, not on vacation, we had a little animal drawing contest. All Mrs. Kelley said was here is paper, draw an animal. We did but didn't know why. Then she told us. Claire and Isaac got picked! Claire drew a frog and Isaac drew a mosquito biting a tiger. I got to draw the lily pad the frog was lying on though. Mrs. Kelley said Mrs.Lutes was going to come in and show us how she actually did it. We have never REALLY seen her do it. We have just heard about it. I am very sorry I missed it, but I gather from my friends it was very, very fun!
Everyone in my class then made thank you cards for Mrs.Lutes. (except for me, I was still on vacation) They drew little drawings, then put tissue paper over them. Just like how Mrs.Lutes had shown them. It was a surprise for her! I would like to say thank you even though I wasn't there to make the cool cards.
Altogether, it was a great experience.
I would like to thank Mrs.Lutes, Mr.Baker, and Mr.Crowley for dedicating their time to this project, especially since they didn't get paid!
Stick to it, work together and you will eventually get it done!
"We hope you found this fun to read. All of the contributors and teachers involved in Portraits for Charity's™ first workshop were very thrilled by the students excitement and participation. Teachers, we hope you find this helpful when trying to decide whether to have a Portraits for Charity™ workshop at your school. I was very moved and honored by what the fourth grade students had written. On May 15th the students handed me a wonderful thank you card with attached tissue art from some of the students. The work they created on their own was outstanding and inspiring! Many thanks to Sir Newton who initiated this project!" ~Kristina A. Lutes
