Different Students, Different Ways...

Just a note about Colin... Colin is a student who needs a lot of individual attention. He is teaching me to have more patience as an educator. I realize that my ability to give him a lot of one-on-one attention is possible because Amanda is leading the class, and I have more freedom to attend to his needs.

Colin likes color. Specifically, he likes to color with markers. And nothing else. He does not like the 3-D projects we have taken part in, nor did he like to use only black pencil for our "color-by-number" this week. In fact, he "hated it." I sat next to him and asked him to help me with mine. After lots of grumbling, he did. And when the picture was complete, I asked him to sign his name, since he had helped with it. He would not. Eventually, he said he would do so only if I helped him finish his own "color-by-number." I happily obliged.

This is a video during the erased drawing activity:

As I noted in a previous week, it is important for students, particularly at this age, it seems, to be able to create artworks that include their interests. Colin loves superheroes and fiction characters, such as this "barnacle" he is referring to. If we allow students to incorporate their interests (and prior knowledge) into their work, they are more engaged, interested, and learn even more.

Later, in the museum, Colin "hated" the discussion we were having as a group. So, I took him by the hand and allowed him to speak to me about any artwork in a separate gallery. He clearly demonstrated the knowledge that we had discussed earlier in class, and that the rest of the class was discussing together. However, Colin needed that extra attention to show his understanding of value and to just talk about art. I was proud of him. Different students learn in different ways. I discovered how Colin learns. If it isn't entirely feasible to give such individual attention in a "real" classroom, it was certainly possible this past week. And I am glad it was.

A Trip to the Museum...

This week was fun and definitely a learning experience. We discussed value and its relation to art and form. I am not sure that all students grasped the concept, but nevertheless, we engaged with them both individually and as a group.

After completing a "color-by-number" parody using different shades, we discussed the ideas of realistic (or representational) and abstract (non-representational) art. Specifically, artist Chuck Close's work was looked at to gain an understanding that an artwork may look either realistic or abstract from a distance, but that understanding may be reversed when looking at the same work close up.

In order to reiterate the students' comprehension with different shades and values, we participated in an erased drawing. This was fun, because when doing the "color-by-number" activity, students enforced the notion of using more pressure to obtain a darker value and using a lighter touch to get a shade closer to white. In the erased drawing, however, the opposite occurred -- students were given pre-shaded sheets of paper, then had to apply pressure onto an eraser to get a lighter mark. It was an entertaining concept, primarily because students never get the chance to do an artwork backwards.

In the museum, we looked at the "Leaded" exhibition, which has a few artworks specifically made by erasure. Students made the connection right away and were absolutely excited to be looking and engaging with "real" art. We broke up into groups of 6-8 to fill out worksheets finding four different values. This was an enjoyable activity because of the tools we employed. Each student had a keychain with the four different values of paint swatches hooked onto it. Students were able to hold up each value to find a matching one in an artwork. Together, students filled out worksheets. But, we discovered that integrating spelling and writing into art at this age and in this way was a little too advanced for some and tedious for others. I felt that simply discussing the values and artworks with them was just as fruitful. Regardless, students had fun and got to take home their "color-by-number" papers and value keychains as a reminder to employ this knowledge outside of the classroom.

Interacting with Clay and with Each Other

The most interesting part of working with young students with clay is observing the way in which they interact with the material itself. Not only do they engage with the clay in apparently tactile ways, but they bring a nurturing tendency to the material. For instance, Kate created a model of a cat (above). Look at how gently she displays it to the camera.

Clay is a nurturing material. The way in which students work with the clay adds to this. It is extremely tactile: we pinch, we pull, we cup, we twist, we push, we squeeze. Due to the nature of the assignment (creating hybrid animals which show textural qualities), students were encouraged to exhibit several of these actions with the clay.

Students also bring prior knowledge to their artwork. This is where meaningful connections are made. For example, several of the boys in our class are interested in dinosaurs. In creating models, drawings, or other artworks of these dinosaurs, not only are they learning about the art materials, but they are integrating subjects, such as science and art, and perhaps even history.

We must remember to facilitate lessons which can include these interests. This way, students will stay interested and motivated to participate. Furthermore, they can create a broader knowledge base of integrated material. This also leads to a relational approach to teaching; we can build better relationships with our students if we learn more about them through their interests, which they are free to explore and depict through art.

Sculptural Markmaking

Amanda led this week's lesson on making marks with clay sculpture. Each student got ball of clay and jumped right into sculpting their own forms during sketchbook time. When working with clay some students became very kinetic.

Ginger stabs he clay, according to her " I can punch the clay, to let out some anger."

To most kids sculpting with clay comes naturally and results in a very enjoyable lesson. Students could expand their understanding of concepts because of the ease of the material. It did not take a lot of instruction for students to grasp techniques like modeling, scoring, sgraffito, and impressing. I found it was also easy for students to explain their process.

Amanda also led a clear demonstration of the techniques that we used for the sculptures by having the kids work with large slabs of clay during the demonstration. Having an interactive lecture portion of te lesson really engages students and ensures that they understand the directions you give them at the time you are giving instruction.

Students experiment techniques as a group on large clay slabs.

They seemed comfortable outlining the steps they took to reach their end result. Due to review of concepts in the past students could easily identify what it meant to make a texture and what kind of shapes were inherent in each of their sculptures. It was refreshing to hear students really apply the vocabulary they picked up from previous lessons.

Ava came up to me and showed me how she made her elephant/bee creature.

This lesson integrated mark making into figurative creation by asking students to create several textures on each figure. They worked from models of animals to combine the creatures into animal hybrids. Hybriding the figures allowed students to explore several textures at once.

Garrison was able to go through and identify the forms and shapes that he made to make up his whole piece.

Amanda chose to spotlight a sculptural artist to set the theme: Giacometti.

Presenting the artist's spotlight: Giacometti.

Kiran chose to make a Giacometti-like sculpture and he showed how he used the clay tools to form an inner structure. Giocometi actually used wire to reinforce his pieces, something that was not previously reviewed. I surprised to see that Kiran thought of how to create tall thin structures by using what was around him.

Kiran shows how he made his "Gooz" figure and gives it a good punch.

The final part of the lesson corresponded to Giacometti's process of documenting work by drawing the finished sculptures. Students were very familiar with drawing from real life due to past lessons where they became familiar with drawing from life. One of the best/funniest drawings that was produced by Hynwoo who actually contexted his documentation. He drew his figure (which was a face) as a waiter that was bringing food to customers in a restaurant. The end result was hilarious!

Hynwoo documenting his sculpture.

Opportunities for Learning

I enjoy seeing such young students work from life. It's uncommon for children to use direct observation in drawing and creating art. It's interesting to see the differences between drawing from their imaginations and from life, such as this still-life set up. It really broadens their abilities, beyond filling a sketchbook with page after page of fairies and dinosaurs.

Students were hesitant to engage with the wire materials this week. However, once they began manipulating the wire, they were more comfortable and really succeeded in creating interesting wire sculptures.


I think it is important to note that while we are writing a lesson plan, we have a preconceived outcome. Yet this outcome is bound to change. Yes, specific objectives may be noted and expected in the plan, but other objectives may not come forward until they have the opportunity to present themselves in the lesson. It is so important that, as new teachers, we are open to having malleable plans, goals, and outcomes. I was not disappointed that this lesson was imperfect. I was excited about the goals, outcomes, and objectives that the students discovered themselves through experimenting with the novelty of wire as an artistic medium. After all, aren't we trying to learn through experimentation?

Week 6- Wire Marks

This was the first week where we had a more formal critique of student work. By displaying the murals in the front of the room from the start of class, it allowed students the opportunity to go up and investigate what they had created. In the beginning of class, some students were going up to the murals and having their own informal critique among themselves about their artwork. They talked about the parts they liked, the parts they made, and other parts that they remembered seeing last week. This video captures one of these informal critiques in which Melanie was able to participate and guide the students in a small discussion.




The actual class critique portion of the lesson was rather effective and enlightening about student engagement with the artwork and their reflection about creating it. They stayed more engaged in the discussion because they had the opportunity to go up to the mural and take a picture of the part that they liked the most. After the picture, the student had to explain in front of the class their reasoning for why they liked that particular part of the mural. Planning for a lot of student interaction and student-led discussion helped to keep them focused on what was going on.

There was some wonderful dialogue that occurred with the students. My favorite was when Kiran showed us his favorite part of the painted mural:

Melanie: "And why did you choose this part, Kiran?"
Kiran: "I chose it because it uses all cool colors and Ginger's used all warm colors."

Hearing him apply his knowledge about the color wheel to this activity was music to an art teacher's ears.

One of the many issues we ran into this week was the fact that we, as instructors, did not work with the materials beforehand to work out the kinks of the projects. Unfortunately this caused a lot of frustration among the students and it gave off a vibe of frustration to the whole classroom in general, including us teachers. In response to this overall frustration, we worked with the students to try to help them with the task at hand with the allotted materials for the activity. At the end, instead of working with the wire, I had the students try using yarn in the jig. Toby played around with the yarn and was able to create a great project using modified materials.





Through this experience, I think we learned as teachers that adapting to "special needs" students needs to have a broader definition in that the student may not have an IEP, but they are tired that day, or confused or have some other issues going on that are affect his or her performance with the project. Although working out some issues before we even presented this lesson to the students would have deterred a lot of the frustration.

One of the most special and gratifying moments of the lesson happened in the last 10 minutes of the day where they were instructed to sculpt anything they wanted out of the wire. Here the students were so imaginative and animated. You could see them making objects that made sense to them and that they could relate to their lives. For example, the picture of Kiran shows him holding up a pair of Darth Vader glasses he made, and the picture of Madisyn holding up her wire mustache. I also included a video of Ginger explaining her 2 wire objects which shows the increased level of creativity and enjoyment than the previous frustrations earlier in the lesson. This part of the lesson allowed them to have the most imaginative play which as we could see was the most fruitful and rewarding part of this week.