One summer reading book for GPS ninth graders is the NY Times bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. The story is of a young woman who is imagined to be the inspiration behind Vermeer’s most famous painting that has the same name as the book title.
Ms. Chevalier’s historical portrait of the girl is fiction, but springs from her study of and appreciation for the painting.
Freshman English teacher Corrie White decided to inspire her students in the same way and plan time away from the classroom for a writing assignment. The classes took a field trip to the River Gallery and Sculpture Garden in the Bluff View Art District. Having studied the narrative connections between art and literature in their class discussions of the novel, they were assigned the task of choosing one piece to inspire their own written narrative that explores the artwork’s visual and thematic elements.
After the field trip, student Grace Brody said, “When I looked at ‘Early Fall’ by David Swanagin, the work created in my mind a fictional story of two people getting lost on a backroad, running out of gas, and just staying where they were” to enjoy the fall scenery. Jaela Beamon chose “How Severe the Moonlight” by Annie Evans as her inspirational piece. Studying the sculpture, she imagined the thoughts and feelings of the artist and let those guide her development of a backstory.
For students busy with athletics, community service activities, and classwork, the girls don’t often have the chance to wander through a gallery of art and sculpture, and they enjoyed the experience and appreciated letting the art drive their creative mission, said officials.