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About the Book & Author •• Courses & Workshops •• Sample Syllabus •• Order Drawing/Writing •• Sample Drawing/Writing •• Drawing/Writing Bulletin Board •• 13 principles for brain-compatible teaching and parenting •• Terms and Powerful Ideas •• The Scribble Hypothesis - The Entire Paper •• The Scribble Hypothesis - Abstract with Research Questions •• Paper in progress: The abstract for the paper Infant Laughter, Toddlers' Scribbles and the Metaphorical Three Year old •• Scribbles: The missing link in a theory of human language in which mothers and children play major roles •• Scribbles: The Missing Link in a Bio-Evolutionary Theory of Human Language with Implications for Human Consciousness - Presented at poster session, "Towards a Science of Consciousness 2004" •• Speaking in Tongues, or Glossolalia, consciousness states, and the mind/body benefits of fluent spiritual speech: Extending the purpose of linguistic experience - To be presented at poster session, "Towards a Science of Consciousness 2006" •• A Theory of Marks and Mind: the effect of notational systems on hominid brain evolution and child development with an emphasis on exchanges between mothers and children •• Multiple Literacies •• Article: The Scribble Hypothesis - Invisible Brain Building •• Scribbling, Drawing, Reading and Writing. Are these skills connected? A Parent’s questions, a teacher’s answers •• Just for Parents •• New Standards for Students and Teachers •• The Thinking Child: A handbook for parents •• Research Questions by chapters, appended to the forthcoming book: The Scribble Hypothesis: How Marks Change Minds © 2002 Susan Rich Sheridan

Author/Instructor

r. Susan Rich Sheridan, author of Drawing/Writing and the new literacy, l997, received a BA in Classics and English from Harvard College and an MAT and an Ed.D from the UMASS, Amherst. Dr. Sheridan has taught art history and studio arts, as well as courses on Neuroconstructivist teaching and learning at the college level. Dr. Sheridan has also taught art and English at the middle school level. Dr. Sheridan offers workshops locally and nationally for professional development points for teachers - across grades and disciplines. Drawing/Writing is also a week-long intensive university-based course earning three undergraduate or three graduate credits across grades and disciplines in Massachusetts through Fitchburg State College, Westfield State College, UMASS, Amherst, Holyoke Community College, the Worcester Art Museum, and Merrimac Education Center in Chelmsford, MA, Cambridge College's NITE (National Institute for Teaching Excellence) summer programs, and Salem State College's North East Consortium for Teacher Education summer programs. Dr. Sheridan is currently teaching at the University of Maine, Machias. Dr. Sheridan’s 500-page, art-informed, brain-based literacy textbook and teachers’ workbook Drawing/Writing and the new literacy, 1997, provides schools of education and classroom teachers with the rationale and step-by-step instruction for a new theory and practice of education. The book can also be used by parents in home literacy programs or by individuals interested in improving their drawing, writing and thinking skills. Dr. Sheridan is a writer, an artist, a teacher and a parent. All of these pursuits have informed her life and her work.

Photo by Allen Photography

To an unprecedented degree, a technological society requires visual literacy skills as well as verbal skills. These requirements place considerable pressures on the classroom, the home, and industry. This book meets this demand for multiple literacy skills by encouraging the natural, evolutionary capabilities of our brains, starting with the universal skill that everyone can do, drawing.

The abilities to write and to read depend upon core skills including the ability to pay attention, to extract information, to communicate ideas and emotions clearly, and to use both words and images. In short, to use the whole brain. These skills can be learned through training in drawing. Drawing is a universal skill. Everyone can draw. No one teaches us how. Drawing is a language instinct.

When talking and writing accompany drawing, verbal skills grow and a double literacy develops, both visual and verbal. This “new literacy " is as old as paleolithic cave drawings and as new as computer technology. The New Literacy models integrated brain function . The New Literacy rests on a new theory of multiple literacies. Humans as language-users have one unique characteristic: they make marks of meaning. These marks first take the form of scribbles. Then, children draw. The marks are equipotential: they can become anything: drawing, writing, mathematics, musical notation. The number of systems for meaning-making each of us learns depends upon opportunity, encouragement and instruction. It depends on our parents, our teachers, our environment, and our culture. Ultimately, it depends upon our brains and how we choose to use them.

Neurologically speaking, literacy is visual/verbal; it is both The corpus callosum connecting the right and left hemispheres of the brain insures that thinking is a complex , cooperative unity- no matter what kind of thinking is going on. The more mark-making systems we use, the more powerfully we think. Multiple literacy is our goal and our birthright.

Learn how to acquire and teach the New Literacy using this parents' guide and teachers' workbook Drawing/Writing and the new literacy, Susan Rich Sheridan, 1997. $33.95 including postage and handling. The How-to section of the book is written in a script-like form. Drawing/Writing can be taught by reading aloud. Drawing/Writing and the new literacy: where verbal meets visual is a textbook/handbook for teachers and for schools of education. It is also a parents’ guide to a home literacy program. The book provides classroom support for teachers across grade and discipline who are interested in a broader approach to literacy, or who have already been trained in Drawing/Writing through workshops or through school of education courses or via self-instruction. the book provides the same kind of support for parents. The 500-page book is illustrated with student work across grade and field grades K-12, as well as at the college level, and at the Elderhostel level. The book is divided into four parts. The first part provides the rationale for a new theory of education called Neuroconstructivism and a new literacy strategy across content areas called Drawing/Writing. The rationale is from a combination of sources: art history, psychology, children’s drawings, the history of writing, and, most compellingly, neurobiology. The second part of the book lays out the five-step Drawing/Writing program step by step while providing supplementary information, especially in connection with geometry, or the study of shapes in space. An ethics component is included in connection with abstract drawing using two new concepts: Acceptable Differences and Right Relationships. The third part of the book -“Hitchhikers’ Guide to Brain Science” - offers information on brain structure and function, including 13 tips for teachers and parents and students on how to encourage and enhance brain development. This section includes a heightened-experience approach to school-based drug education programs. The last part of the book outlines a generally applicable cross-modal approach to curricula called “The Thinking Child.” This section includes detailed, illustrated cross-modal English and Fine Arts curricula appropriate K-12 as well as at the college level. For more information on the book or courses and presentations on Drawing/Writing, consult this site. If you have further questions or requests, contact the author/instructor/consultant directly at: ssheridan@drawingwriting.com or call or write Susan Rich Sheridan, Ed.D. 68 Maplewood Drive Amherst, MA 01002 413-549-1606

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