11/7/2013

This Thursday was our first experience at the high school with their new quarter.  There were no new students, but some were missing from the previous class.  The students had begun their first piece of the five required for the quarter and were pretty far along.  A few of the students were beginning to learn how to throw on the wheel, which was exciting for me since that is what I am working on in ceramics right now.  I was able to watch Mrs. L’s demo for that and add my two cents on those skills as well as other projects students were working on.  I really enjoy helping students who are trying to draw realistically, because I feel like I can really be helpful to them in seeing what is going on in the still life or the gridded out picture and can explain successfully what they need to be looking at when they are working on these pieces.

At the middle school fifth grade was working on glazing their clay fish.  I was able to do my own as well and worked on following cleanliness rules throughout the classroom with the glazes to avoid spills. 

Sixth grade was working on their Pablo Picasso portraits.  Mrs. L. did a demo and each of the students did a project sample of four thumbnails of possible Picasso style drawings.  It was fun watching the students think abstractly of where to put noses, ears, eyes, and mouths in places that they are not normally supposed to be.  I was able to make my own project sample in this class.

Seventh grade was continuing on their pinwheels and doing the Georgia O’keefe section of it.  The pinwheels are continuing to look amazing and I was able to connect with some of the students and talk to them about their interest in art and education.

My partner and I taught our second day of the eighth grade lesson and I was impressed at how far the students had come since we saw them last.  Most of them realized that this was a real project and they need to take it seriously.  They wanted their pieces to turn out well, so they put in time outside of class.  We graded the finished thumbnails and told them to either go back and fix a couple things or go ahead and trace it onto the foam and outline it.  I did a demo for the tracing prior to this.  Most of the students got through this although it was hard to keep some of the disabled students on task.

We asked Mrs. L. what she did within her lesson plans and curriculum involving criticism and aesthetics. She has one specific work sheet that she has the students fill out that make them think about aesthetics and their own practice of art. After each project she has students fill out a reflection or assessment sheet that make students talk about and consider the aesthetics of the piece. In her high school classes she has “studio visits” which is basically a critique of each students work in progress or completed once a week. For the middle school classes, students fill out a critique form and Mrs. L. has each student come up individually and talk to her about how the project went as they finish their assessment sheets. She has an emphasis on thought process, however if she had more time she would do more.