Studio Art Process

 I teach an art option class in addition to my Humanities teaching load. I love teaching art. It's such a relaxing pause in the day, when I just get to help kids create.

This year, Covid has thrown a bit of wrench into option scheduling. Typically, students rank their option choices and get placed in courses they're interested in. Because we need to keep kids in their homeroom cohorts, we've moved to a wheel approach - the students stay in their homerooms and cycle through every option, spending about eight weeks in each one.

This made me reconsider how I taught art. Typically, I'd teach it in a project-based way, so everyone would work on drawing or pottery or printmaking at the same time, though they'd have choice in what the drew or made or printed. But now I would have students in my class who don't consider themselves artists, and very likely, some who are actually very anxious about making art.

I'd been considering the Teaching Artistic Behaviour (TAB) approach for a while, and this was just the push I needed to jump in. I read Engaging Learners Through Artmaking: Choice-Based Art Education in the Classroom (TAB) by Katherine M. Douglas and Diane B. Jaquith (Alberta teachers, hot tip! I borrowed this book from the ATA library!), and once I learned more about the practicalities of this approach, I was ready. I knew this approach would help everyone find an artform that felt good to them, regardless of their past artmaking experiences, and would meet them where they're at.

The TAB approach can be summarized in three sentences:

1. What do artists do?
2. The child is the artist.
3. The art room is the child's studio.

Being a teacher who lives every day and thrives in student choice, I'm starting at the far end of the choice spectrum. I am planning on having each student create at least one 2D and one 3D project over the course of the eight weeks, knowing many students will do more than this. Allowing them so much choice, I knew I needed to scaffold them through the idea-getting phase, experimentation and learning of the medium, creation, and reflection phases of a project. So I created a graphic that will guide them through the process, which is a morphing of studio art practice, creativity, and design thinking theories.

My plan is to have students conference quickly with me before they move to the next phase of the project, giving me an opportunity to guide their practice, and give feedback.

I know my students will need help with the inspiration phase, as well as learning new techniques and skills. In my Google classroom, I have assembled some resources they can use for Drawing, Pastels, Watercolour Painting, Acrylic Painting, Printmaking, Calligraphy, and Collage & Mixed Media. I'll work on doing the same for 3D artforms as well over the next couple of weeks.

Students are not restricted to these media. If a student has a digital tablet and wants to get better at digital art, sure! If a student wants to make comics, go for it! However, I want every artist to improve regardless of where they're starting from, and to do this, we'll be learning the Studio Habits of Mind vocabulary and what it means. This will play centre stage in assessment, as well.

Every day, I'll do a minilesson to teach a skill or technique. I'm thinking that 

My biggest worry is that many students will need me at the same time, and with Covid precautions, we're avoiding movement as much as possible. So I'm making each kid a set of three cards, which I'll laminate. They'll leave the "Happily working" one on their desk unless they need me, in which they'll replace it with the "I need a conference" or "I need help." I've created a little form called "I need something," too, which they can fill out to let me know what they need.

As with anything, I'm sure this process will become refined in the hands of my students, so we'll see what happens!

Resources

Download PDF copies of these handouts:

• Studio Art Project Process (colour)
• Studio Art Project Process (B&W)
• Studio Habits of Mind
• Table Cards 1 and Table Cards 2
• I Need Something Form

From Safe to Brave

 A couple of years ago, we started our year in grade 8 Humanities by having the students create a user manual. It was good, but it missed the mark in a couple of ways, namely, the students didn't use them beyond the assignment. In an effort to more purposefully set students up for the work they would do throughout the year in Room to Breathe, we hacked it, and came up with From Safe to Brave.

The purposes of this beginning of the year task are:

• We all learn more about the people in the room.
• We can start to build trust in order to take creative risks. We want to become brave so we can do outrageously awesome things this year.
• Students can hone in on the things that fascinate them, and their learning preferences, so they can make good decisions about what they want to read, write, speak, view, listen to, and represent about in Room to Breathe.

Feel free to make a copy of the slidedeck and hack it at will so it serves your learners.

Creativity... It's in the Design

Why is Creative Confidence Important?

By Trina Penner

Photo credit

I teach grade 9-12 in the Fine Arts (Drama, Technical Theatre, Dance). I’ve always felt comfortable within this world professionally and personally. I need you to know that this is both a comfort and a stress. When folks know that I am an “artsy”, they automatically assume that I am able to create on the spot. This is not how creativity works. In fact, creativity takes preparation. It takes energy, thought, stimulus (ideas), inspiration, trials (prototypes), and time. Sometimes this is a cycle that repeats itself over and over until it feels just right to share. When I work with my students, this is something that I am sensitive to based on my own creative experiences.

When I am creative and I share it, it is because I have percolated on the subject for quite some time. I have invested of myself into the creation. It is not some willy-nilly thought bubble that just pops out for the world to see. Creativity requires courage sometimes. It is best shared amongst those that you can trust. When you are supported and share your creation in a community of trust, with people that allow you to fail and feel alright about it, then that is the ultimate freedom for a creative person. I have to wonder how many students feel this support in their classes?

What I want educators to know is that when you design learning for students that requires creativity, you need to be mindful. Creative learning tasks are best designed with the accompaniment of a trustful and supportive creativity lab (classroom). It takes time to establish a sense of this community in a classroom but it is worth it. If you can do this, students will feel creatively confident no matter what outcomes happen during the learning task. The affective domain of the individual student is nurtured and cultivated in this type of setting. A deep sense of belonging and ownership become intrinsic to the learning.

Because of what I teach, I am able to teach creativity daily. It requires my students to be thinkers, innovators, experimenters, collaborators, and problem solvers.  Most of all, it is hard work but the learning that happens when they are in this type of creative flow is exceptional. They build skills that will assist them for a lifetime. They make me proud to be present during their creative discoveries. How will you make this happen for your students?

Need ideas on how to build community in your classroom? Please contact Trina Penner for some stimulus.  trinapenner@gmail.com