When students are learning about literature and the symbolism it provides, there are other ways to express their responses beyond the standard essay.
Debra Eck, local artist and Jamestown Community College art teacher, demonstrated that firsthand to Jamestown High School English students Tuesday as she brought her artwork inspired by a short story to share with them in the school library.
JHS 11th- and 12th-grade students read ''The Yellow Wallpaper'' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman as a study in the feminist lens, explained JHS English chairperson Norma DeJoy. She was unaware that Mrs. Eck, a local artist, had done work related to the story until she saw it on display at the Prendergast Library last year in a show called ''Mad Women and Immoral Wallpaper.''
''She volunteered to come in and do this for our kids,'' Ms. DeJoy said. ''She shared with us copies of an article she wrote about the story, and agreed to stay all day with us sharing her ideas and her interpretations.''
Though only 11th- and 12th-graders had read the story, students from English classes in all grades at JHS were invited to the exhibit, Ms. DeJoy said, to introduce them to the concepts and show them Mrs. Eck's alternative way of reacting to the story.
Gilman's story, first published in 1892, is written from the point-of-view of a woman whose husband has confined her in a room for the summer to help her ''recuperate'' from ''a slight hysterical tendency.'' His effort is to force her into submissiveness. While locked in the room, the narrator becomes obsessed with the pattern and color of the wallpaper - eventually coming to believe that there are women trapped behind the paper, and that she is one of them.
Mrs. Eck shared more than just her art with the students - she spoke with them about feminist ideals of the time period and how they relate to today's social structure. In addition, she participated in question-and-answer sessions in which she responded to students' queries about her artwork and her interpretations of the story.
Several pieces of Mrs. Eck's art, all related to attempts to ''break the pattern,'' were on display throughout the day for students to examine and interpret. One of Mrs. Eck's most visually jarring works is a portion of a wall covered with yellow wallpaper, with a corset protruding from within.
''There isn't any outside to the pattern - we're all inside the pattern,'' she told students. ''You can't set yourself outside yourself, so how do I shake up the pattern from the inside out?''
Saying that she herself is a part of the ''social norm'' - a happily married suburban woman raising three children - Mrs. Eck said that her artwork is her way exhibiting feminist behavior without destroying her own ''pattern'' of life.
''(Society has) come to a consensus agreement on what the pattern can look like right now, but I don't think that's the end of the line,'' she said.
