Rhetoric and Analysis

Five Eighth Grade finalists recently presented art lectures to Eighth Grade girls from The Nightingale-Bamford School.

For the Lectures, each member of the Eighth Grade researched a notable work by a renowned artist, and prepared a lecture and PowerPoint presentation on the work. Boys selected relevant tools from traditional elements of analysis which included the in-depth critique of a variety of components of the work including its historical setting, and the artist's use of gesture, geometric simplification, iconography, line, color, and balance, among others.

Five finalists were selected from the preliminary rounds by a panel of internal judges. The finalists competed on Friday morning before a panel of predominantly external judges that included faculty members, administrators, trustees, and art experts.

The girls of Nightingale, the boys' peers from the Eighth Grade and the boys of the Seventh Grade all looked on ... and what a show it was!

Each of the boys was judged on the quality and depth of his research and analysis, as well as his oral presentation skills and the visual design and technical elements of his slide presentation.

The winning lecture was on the Euphronios krater, an ancient Greek bowl painted by Euphronios, with Euxitheos as potter in the 5th century BCE.

The NBS Lecture Series is one of three interdisciplinary summary projects included in our Eighth Grade Humanities course, a culminating Eighth Grade course that emphasizes analysis and rhetoric.

By having our boys refine their writing, speaking and skills of critical analysis through these types of projects, we are preparing them for the demands of a world that emphasizes the ability to synthesize and analyze information for a purpose, and to then communicate it cogently and effectively.

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