Shannon Turick walked between desks and made her way to an array of paint bottles set up at the front of her classroom.
After dispensing globs of white, blue and black onto a paper plate for one of her students, she printed a reference photo for another before sitting down on an ottoman.
As some two dozen students worked on canvases scattered around her English class at Buchtel Community Learning Center, Turick flipped through photos of those same teenagers, who previously spent quiet moments reading novels. Those moments inspired paintings they continued to craft as the end of the school year neared.
Turick’s goal is simple: Get her students to read. “And the more they read,” she said, “even if it’s comics or [manga], the more they’re going to develop a richer vocabulary.”
Now in its third year, artwork from Turick’s Love for Literacy program lines the hallways outside her classroom — portraits of Spider-Man and other comic book heroes, reimagining of book covers and key plot points painted by more than 300 prior students brighten otherwise beige-colored walkways.
Sophomore Raelyn Colvin’s work will be next.
“It’s a good way to express how we interpret the book,” said Colvin, a participant in this year’s program. On this Monday morning, she worked on a painting inspired by Joyce Meyer’s book, “Battlefield of the Mind.” A well-worn copy of the Christian self-help book balanced on the edge of her desk as she worked.
“I’ve never done this before,” she continued. “I was just reading [the book] because I liked it, but then when we had to paint, I had to think about it like, ‘Hold on, what did I learn in the book?’”
The project culminates May 21 with a public art show at Buchtel CLC (4-6 p.m.), giving students a chance to talk about their paintings and the books that inspired them.
Beyond painting, this year’s program included a writing component. Students published “Voices of Buchtel: In Our Own Words,” a collection of short essays and poems.
Buchtel CLC boasts hallway of student artwork, reading achievements
The idea for the project came after Turick said she noticed students had fallen out of love with reading, especially after the pandemic. They wanted to listen to audiobooks but not read novels that filled her bookshelves.
“I wanted to incorporate silent reading, but I wanted something exciting to do at the end — so I just came up with this idea to do paintings to represent the books,” Turick said.
The program has received more than $25,000 from the GAR Foundation’s Educator Initiative Grant program, helping Turick for three years purchase supplies, pay for local artist and retired teacher Julienne Hogarth to help students put brush to canvas with confidence, and amass a classroom library that is culturally relevant to her students.
This year, Turick took students to the Cleveland Museum of Art for inspiration.
Literacy a focus as more than half of APS students underperform on English Language Arts II state test scores.
Last fall, Akron schools received a one-star rating in early literacy from the state — with a note that it needs significant support to meet standards for its youngest readers.
In her state of the district address, Superintendent Mary Outley noted fewer than half of the schools’ third graders are proficient in reading, adding that improving literacy is a bridge that supports Akron’s future.
It is part of a nationwide trend of declining reading scores over the past several years, according to a national Education Scorecard released earlier this week. Data from Akron Public Schools’ third- through eighth graders, analyzed by scholars at Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth, found APS students were reading below state and national averages, with scores continuing to decline since the pandemic.
At the high school level, more than 60 percent of APS students were not proficient based on their English Language Arts II state test scores.
Project inspires students to express themselves
Colvin said her book selection helped her find new ways to deal with mental battles, including worries and doubts, and the painting gave her another avenue to express what she learned.
It also led to Colvin enjoying her English class more, she said — because students get to read what they like during silent reading.
“She does want you to read,” Colvin said of her teacher. “And we get to voice our opinion a lot — I like that a lot about this class. She teaches us that even though somebody has a different perspective, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
For Turick, that’s the point. While she follows a curriculum and students read books as a group as in any standard ELA class, Love for Literacy is something “a little extra,” something she hopes inspires them.
“I’ve had kids that have told me that they now read at home because of the project, and I think that’s the most exciting thing for me,” Turick said.
Project adds hobby to student’s everyday life
Maquaila Thomas, 15, worked on a painting inspired by Karen McManus’ “One of Us is Lying,” a mystery novel involving five students representing different stereotypes who serve detention together and are under investigation after one of them dies.
Thomas said the project made her think about the book in a different way — if she didn’t really do the reading, she wouldn’t have been able to pick a scene to paint.
No wonder she said Turick’s class is one of her favorites.
“It’s like we do work, but you get to understand the work,” Thomas said.
Nearby, Quisean Rodgers, 16, mixed shades of blue paint to start his piece inspired by Pete Hautman’s inaugural “Bloodwater Mysteries” novel. Like Thomas, his pick for silent reading was a mystery/thriller following two teens’ investigation into their classmate’s disappearance in a small town.
While not yet done with the book when he started the painting, Rodgers hoped to finish the novel soon and felt the culminating project — and Turick’s English class — helped him read more.
It was a shift from when he was a child and he ignored his mother’s commands to read.
“When I’m here, she gave us the book and [told] us to read — it’s either you sit there quietly, or you read, and my first option [now] is read,” Rodgers said.
“So that’s another thing for me to relax now. She added a hobby to my daily lifestyle.”
Buchtel CLC English teacher: ‘They can do things they’ve never tried’
Hogarth, who helped students learn painting techniques well outside Turick’s skillset, spent years integrating core curriculum into the arts.
“To me, I’m reaching more kids that way — especially those art kids that sit in the back of the room and don’t do so well, they’re going to thrive on this,” Hogarth said. “But then we’ve got kids that aren’t in art and they’re finding that it’s very relaxing or they’re better at it than they thought.
“Any time you try something different with kids, it’s engaging … and it gives them a way to express themselves.”
Turick said prior students told her they discovered a love of painting through the project; rekindled a love for reading they had lost; found self-expression through writing. She remembered one student, who had shown little interest in classwork, came to her at the end of a school year and asked to take home a canvas and paint.
“I just want them to have, honestly, a love for reading and a realization that they can do things they’ve never tried before,” Turick said. “A lot of them have never tried painting before, and then they discover that it’s not as scary, it’s fun.
“And it’s fun to just try new things.”
