Art Spirit

Changing it up

We are building our endurance and persistence in all grade levels and specifically in 6th grade.

Exploring color through mono printing a series of images based on one of three themes ( the great outdoors| under the sea| architecture).  The students are now taking three of the mono prints and incorporating them into a larger painting. 
It is so interesting to me how we as elementary level art educators have the opportunity from one rotation to the next to fine tune lessons. We gather data and instruction is driven based on the data. 


Here is an example of data driving instruction; and we are still working through it.
Criteria was introduced. 



Students gathered their mono prints. 


Demonstration was given; careful language was given around choices being your own.
Students went to work and WHOA! They all looked like what I had done in the demonstration. I cut up my mono prints; they cut up their mono prints. I started to paint a tree; they started to paint a tree. And it went like this for the class period. I walked around and talked with students about their choices and came to understand through our conversations that they didn't really have a grounding in what their work was going to be about for them and by them. I put those pieces in storage for the next time this group is back and thought about how I might be able to move the next rotation of 6th graders deeper into their work before they start on their paintings so I could do this with the class I just saw and the 6th grade group I had yet to see.

So, with the next rotation of 6th graders ( I have three) here’s what I did. 

Criteria was introduced.
Then we re-watched and discussed the video by Jane Hirshfield TED Metaphor.

After a discussion about where and how metaphors can be used in writing and visual arts the students wrote one metaphor or simile about their theme.

Students came up with  a variety of things like 'Flexible as an octopus' or 'A wolf pack is like a sturdy tree'.

Then when I demonstrated all I showed was how to glue the paper onto the frame; important first step since the frame will be incorporated into the work. The beginning results of the student work are much more grounded in their personal vision. I stepped back and out of the doing and gave them verbal permission without visual permission (cutting up their mono prints).

I made these choices  to step back and take a deeper look at imagery in a new way because the students were trying to understand their theme but needed grounding in a narrative. Looking into and writing a metaphor about their theme gave the students a context for their narrative image.

Planning

Here's my plan book. I always fill it out on the weekend so I have some time to think about what the week ahead will look like; where this rotation is in the lesson or unit; what guiding reflection sentence stems we will address.




Art educators know this; sometimes you need more or less time than you've allotted. Planning is like budgeting. We are budgeting the time according to the need of each particular art class. Often I think of the plan book as a map. A suggested way to get there but this can and will change with each class. The goal is the learning. I write the learning at the top of each class period so I can keep track of where we are going and when I need to, not if I need to but when I need to, I refer back to it. I am, at heart, still wondering around the studio classroom with my students. We get interested in something and we go in that direction but it is my responsibility to bring them back to the learning by helping them to see or discussing where the cool thing we just figured out about color fits into our learning about harmony or portraits. One way I have found are guiding reflection sentence stems. These are direct fill in the blank questions that students begin with one sentence stem and end with another sentence stem. We close the class with the students either offering their learning to the whole group or a turn and talk model at tables. The reflection process helps the students 'do what artists do..' that is to say they are thinking about what they have done the day or rotation before and they they are looking ahead to considering the possibilities of their work in the current class.

Here are some examples from 4th grade collograph portraits:

Learning from one another.

I swim on a masters team several mornings a week. In all of the six lanes at 5:30am there are a wide variety of swimmers. On any given day the adults that show up are a range that spans from new swimmers, to people who grew up swimming in age-group leagues, to several former US National Team members and a couple of former Olympians (one as recent as and alternate Pentathlete 2016 in Rio!). Cool. Yes, and not unlike our classrooms wherein students come to us each day with their levels of experienced to novice. The thing that I learn each time I swim is really there is more to learn about swimming and always WOW! The talent and practice is inspiring. But this really isn't about swimming what I want to talk about is the importance of modeling. How we model and what model to our students is then modeled in the work. It matters when are students gathered around to be shown the 'next step' or the 'how to apply' demonstration that I am intentional in my words and and actions. What is important about modeling is that everything is modelling. I believe that it doesn't matter the modality you are choosing to implement in your classroom that is to say TAB, Restorative, Gradual Release or any of them; what is important about what I do is how I am demonstrating through my actions that is not so much about talent but more about practice. Demonstrating practice in planning, in thinking through choices of images or color and all of the implicit pieces of art making should happen through in modelling. I look for evidence in student work after a demonstration that helps me see if the demonstration met the goal for the designated portion of learning. Not that the students are doing what I did; rather I know a demonstration has been successful when I see and hear an interpretation of what I showed. I rarely hang up the the demonstration piece ; instead leave it out on a table so students can 'check'. I do this because students who have executive functioning or processing challenges need the opportunity to listen, watch then 'check back'; leaving the demonstration piece out gives everyone the opportunity to 'check back'. So, back to swim practice. The opportunity to observe and apply the modelling in practice that I get each time I swim in a lane next to some amazing swimmer is not unlike our classroom experience wherein there is modelling by the coach or another swimmer and we are learn as well as move with these observations to another level of engagement and understanding.

Routines

It is the last week of September. We have been in school for a little over a month. I have seen all 450 of my students for two rotations. This means we spent approximately 8 hours together. A very short amount of time relative to the volume of work the students have already produced. To clarify: produced means sketch journal, processes, reflecting, discussion and all the pieces we do each lesson. In the studio classroom I maintain ‘an every moment counts’ approach. Another way to think about this; we use all of our instructional time all of the time. This looks like explorations in art applications and the sounds like students being given the responsibility through implementation and maintaining consistent predicable routines. There are as many ways to present and attend to routines in a classroom as there are art educators. My best thinking and reflection has lead me to create and maintain a community of makers who ‘…are caretakers of the materials, tools and each other…’ I say this quite bit. I use this phrase consistently with all grade levels for example : ‘…[student name] thank you for wiping off the table/using the brush to create these beautiful strokes…’ or whatever we are learning and I am reinforcing through language and action. 

The culture of a classroom is a direct reflection of the adult action in that classroom. A community of makers that are regarded with their names and with their individuality is a safe place to learn and succeed in the arts.

Make a place to sit down.

Wendell Berry tells us in poem ‘ How to Be a Poet’ to : ‘Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.’This is about listening; listening to the quiet. Classroom management is about listening to the quiet space between student action and student learning. Now, you might have already enlisted biases about how the art room looks different and that students need to talk to one another. I agree. Students do need to talk with one another about their art/art making and the art room does look different. The quiet is about routines, relationship, safe environment, consistent kindness and intentional adult action. All of which when in place instructional practices can and do thrive;conversely without routines, relationship, safe environment, consistent kindness and intentional adult action the very best resources, units and planning fall flat. 

Classroom management is a deep layer with in the strata of the studio classroom. It can and does look different with every teacher. And every teacher at some point in their day or week struggles with management of behaviors of the human beings they are charged with educating in visual arts practices. So, think about it. How are the routines going in your classroom? Do you have some? Are there consistent predicable things you do with your students? Do you have systems in place that ensure the safety of all students all the time? As the adult in the room, how do you follow up on those systems when a student/s are or become unsafe or off task?

In my studio classroom we have agreements. Agreements look like rules the difference is we all generated the pieces that we felt made artists and art making meaningful as well as doable within our studio classroom. So the change is that the students created the agreements instead of the ‘rules’ coming from the teachers(me) through group activity. The students decided what they felt was important about ‘what arts do…’ and ‘what art is…’; then individually made choices about what was important. In the ‘individual step’ each student from 2nd -6th grade completed some form of the following sentence: I agree to _________ and ____________ so that I can _________________ in our creative learning environment. Then we moved from the individual back to the collective by sharing with two thought partners (other students). For 1st grade we generated what artists do… and what is art… then each student shared with two thought partners (other students) what they felt they could do to be an artist and do art. The agreements are posted in our classroom on chart paper as a reminder; the sentences are in the student journals. The purpose in doing this is to create a collaborative and collective responsibility for the function of the daily environment in the studio classroom. 

Classroom management must be cultivated and attended to. Management is woven into instructional practices. There is not one without the other; to ensure student success in the visual arts we consistently must ‘make a place’ for the ‘quiet’ in the space between management and instructional practice.

How to Be a Poet

By Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

Source: Poetry (Poetry)