We kicked off week one with a few Artistic Behavior Units. The first unit is titled Artists Ask & Respond. For this unit we ask students to start with a word. From that word, we ask the students to develop five questions. from that lists of questions, we ask the student to select one and then create a work of art that responds to the question.

Above: The student picked the word Easy. From that, the student developed the question; 
What Makes You Feel Uneasy?
​He then asked his peers the question and received responses such as spiders and baby dolls. The student then developed the work of art above to respond to his question, What makes you feel uneasy? Nailed it.

This second unit is titled Artists Steal. For this unit, we looked at artworks and artists that appropriated other works to create their own. Sometimes they did this legally and other times they ran into trouble. Next, we asked the students to create their own work of appropriation. They could do this by combining two or more things or simply changes something about one thing. 

Ninja turtles remixed with Power Rangers, work still in progress.

Over in Beginner Art, we kicked off the week with a Media Fair. The Media Fair provides those students new to art, an opportunity to explore the different traditional materials available in the room. Definitely a benefit for those students who have never  had the chance to work with these materials in the past. Students had the choice of exploring the media on their own, or selecting and following an online tutorial.

After the Media Fair is over , students will be able to select any media for their first unit project. Its a great way to get students up to speed and ensure they have full choice regarding media for their first unit.

The process of making art includes four phases that align with the National Standards. The phases include Inspiration, Design, Creation and Reflection. Learning and growth occurs as students work through the four phases of this art making process. For this reason, students are assessed weekly based on their engagement. The expectation is that students are fully engaged in the process daily, taking part in all activities.
 
The left column identifies the phases of the process. The middle column defines the phase. The right column presents the practices the students should be accomplishing for each phase.  

If you would like to learn more, here are a few links that go deeper into a few of the topics mentioned in this post...

​More about Teaching for Artistic Behavior
More about Realigning the Standards
More about working with Learning Targets
​