At the End

Ben, Art 1

Incorporating a high level of student choice involves quite a bit of trust. Students have to learn to trust their own ability and vision. Teachers have to trust that they can pull it off. Which is hard, especially when you're used to the control over the final product that a teacher directed model brings. So when exam time rolls around sometimes I'm a bit nervous, especially this year with our shiny, new re-vamped units. Did they get it?  
Often I hear that beginning students should focus on skills, or that they can't make good decisions independently. I disagree. The most important thing I can give my students is a voice. So I challenge them.  
For their final project I asked my Art 1 students to create a piece around the theme of identity and Art 2 to make work about about a current event or social issue. 

These are big, hard topics and I wondered how my students would handle them. 

I was pleased to see that they were ready for the challenge and also interested and engaged. You see, kids have good ideas. Above all, it's our job to teach them how to develop and express them. 
 
Here are some examples of student work and writing. All the work pictured here is from Art 1 or 2 - this is not work from advanced students. 

"I printed out a few pages of the harmful synthetic components used in beauty products, particularly the ones that were rated high on the toxic scale (10 being the worst). The names of the chemicals and the effects that they had on the body were the background, and in the center of the piece I drew an eye to represent the false sense of beauty that woman feel when they pile on layers and layers of makeup. " -Leigh, Art 2

"For this project I choose to represent the concept of how things are different to how they look, or also how people have a different identity and pretend to be someone else to take advantage of other people. To show my concept I did a painting of a wolf wearing the skin of a sheep, the painting showed how reality could be really different from the expectations that people have. I used a dark color in the background to represent the real identity of the animal. The blood and the skin of the sheep on the wolf represent the change of someone's identity with the purpose of taking advantage of other people. " Eduardo, Art 2

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"To make the point, I broke up this text around the fists, showing the "people" pushing through all the negativity. How together, we can made a loud enough voice to get change done. Around the hands, i listed the names of activists and movements towards change. The big text, "Hear Us Roar", has the Earth as the "o", making it about all of us that call ourselves humans. I also used as many different skin tones I could find to also make it a unified, human issue." - Syndey, Art 2

Our last unit of the semester was about identity, or how people see themselves or others. My project was not only on myself but one of my favorite celebrities, Emma Watson. Seeing as we both identify as feminists, and that she has her own feminist organization, I would draw her as a feminist icon, Rosie the riveter. However, "I drew her in her Hogwarts uniform, wearing Gryffindor colors to show she is brave for expressing her support of feminism in Hollywood. Therefore, she has a speech bubble saying "Gryffindor feminist" instead of "we can do it" because it shows that she identifies herself as a Gryffindor and a feminist, and that in the end, how you identify yourself is all that matters." - Jenna, Art 1

Morgan, Art 2

And what did they think about the class? Did they learn? Again, my students:

"What I liked most about this class was our freedom to make whatever we wanted and ability to interpret the unit however we wanted. It really expanded my horizons and made me think about all of the options I had in this class. I got to make things I actually liked while stepping out of my comfort zone." - Jenna, Art 1

 "I liked this class because we got to use our creativity to the fullest extent. We got to experiment with different materials and show our own style. We were able to come up with crazy ideas that may or may not have worked. We got to be ourselves and learn new ways to improve. I don't think anything could make this class better. " - Kearstyn, Art 2

"What I liked about this class was the variation of projects and topics that were introduced. I think we were all pushed in directions we hadn't been before and I know I personally improved my art work through this semester in Art 2" - Eloisa, Art 2

"Before taking this class, art was a much more literal thing to me. If the theme of a project was underwater, I'd draw the ocean. If the theme was nature, I'd paint a landscape. I never put any deep thought or hidden themes in my artwork. Everything was what it seems. Now having taken this class, I refuse to take any project literally. I think Art 2 has made me more conscious of themes in art and allowed me to incorporate them into my artwork. " - Matt, Art 2