Assessment, Instruction, Learning
The students learned how an idea can turn into a sketch, to a painting, then sculpture and finally a whole story involving their creation that started only as a rock. They were able to be involved a observe how an idea can grow and grow into something unique and extraordinary. Throughout this class they were engaged consistently and motivated to work on their creations. Some students needed more persuasion and assistance to keep moving forward but in the end accomplished a lot.
Lesson 1
Personification Artist Powerpoint
Creature Play Sheet
Ceramic Creature
Powerpoint
Polaris class newsletter
Lesson 2
Assessment Instruments
Each student created a creature bio that helped them think about qualities they wanted their agate inspired creature to possess. They were able to think about a name, personality, and where the creature might live. There was also an option where they could write a short story around their creature. We were able to collect these as a form of assessment and to see if each of the students were on track.
Documentation of Learning
One of the main concepts I wanted to teach was the ability to find inspiration from ordinary objects or the world around us. This student was very successful with that. He was able to see a creature with in the random rocks he was given. This idea he took and ran with thought the entire project. He made some creature changes here and there like making the arms of the creature bananas. He enjoyed this because he came up with his creature all on his own and this was great for his confidence.
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Expressions
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Stone Observations and Creature
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Students will make individual observations about the stone they choose. These observations will later be transferred into the student’s artwork. They will choose which characteristics of the stone are most important and use those characteristics to tell the stone and their character’s unique story. Students will choose how to express their observations of the stones through their creature and use the characteristics they observed as fuel to create a personality or persona for their creature.
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After reading the story, students will be able to discuss and reflect on their thoughts on the book using personal interpretation. (Comprehend/Reflect/Identify how artists make choices using the language of visual art and design to communicate ideas, purpose and intent /Critical Reflection/Literacy)
While reading the book, Agate: What Good is a Moose I stopped and asked students questions on how they might relate to it. This sparked some amazing conversation on how everyone
is unique and how their art is also
unique. They were also able to connect with the protagonist who was feeling left out and sad.
Students demonstrated many clay building skills like slip & score as well as pinch, coil, and slab building methods. The students really enjoyed building creatures out of clay because it was something they haven't done much. They also demonstrated turning something that is 2-d into something that was 3-d. It can be really hard to think this way and create a challenge. But with the teachers help and their creative problem solving the creatures turned out great.
Using their agate and paintings, students will be able to create a sculpture that transforms their agate into a “living” three dimensional creature by applying clay building techniques (coil, slab, pinch, kiln firing, slip & score.
(Bloom’s: Create / Standard: Create / GLE 1: Plan and create works of visual art and design by exploring various media recognizing various purposes and intentions / Art Learning: Materials and Techniques)
Strength and Weakness of Assessment
I don't feel as if we did enough formal assessment. The only physical thing we collected from students was the creature bio. However we did have a lot of great discussions and asked some amazing questions that really go the students engaged and thinking. If we were to use that approach coming up with a way to take note of that would have been beneficial. Our objectives got more refined as the semester went on which was a great improvement and gave us something more specific to look for when teaching the class. There are deferentially some moments where improvisation become a good friend. We weren't sure how long it would take them to paint or create clay creatures so that had to be very flexible. We did run out of time to create quality environments which was slightly disappointing.
We also started off with this great idea to weave our lesson with parts of a story. Like the creatures being the characters and the environment being the setting but I think that become to much and it dropped out of our instruction to the students. If we were able to continue with that theme I think it would have connected with the students on a deeper level. Especially because they were learning about writing stories already. Then again it may have become repetitive and they could have gotten bored.
Having two teachers in the room made things a lot easier especially when trying to accomplish a lot of different tasks in one class period. I know that when i'm teaching my own class that wont always be the case and i will need to figure out a better system that can accomplish that. Being in an actual art room would be a great start and i'm really excited for that.