Day six: Stage Design and Continued Perspective

General Art:
As class began students were instructed to take out a sheet of paper and write the title of a book. The title must be of a book that the student read that created strong images when reading. They were then asked to narrow down their concentration onto one scene that made an impression on the student. Imagine this scene: what it looks like - imagine color, action, etc. Then pick one emotion that describes the scene. After students were given an ample amount of time, Mr. H began a PowerPoint presentation focusing on what portrayed specific emotions. To introduce the topic, Mr. H reviewed "The Taxonomy of Art" that he covered earlier in the year. This includes Emotional, Formal, and Imitational art. The only one they had not covered in this course yet was emotional. To help students gain an understanding of why certain images invoked certain emotions, he created a PowerPoint that contained images that invoked a variety of emotions: this presentation contained The Scream by Edvard Munch, Winnie the Pooh, a Turner painting, and a Monet painting. Mr. H asked the students to talk about these images and why they felt the way they did while looking at them. What does the image do that makes you feel a certain way? As they began talking, Mr. H slowly prodded them in the right direction and asked them to explain their reasoning to the class. I thought this was a fantastic way to keep students involved in their learning and working with each other. They're learning to talk about art through gaining new vocabulary and processing what they see. Don't just look, but think and question. Nearly every student in the room made a point of participating in the discussion and all of the students seemed engaged in the activity for the entire period. I was very excited to watch and listen to them as they struggled to put art into words. Tomorrow they will learn about types of stages and begin designing theirs.

Eighth grade:
Students were continuing their cityscape scenes today. Most of them had finished the major architectural structures and were focusing on adding windows, street lights, and other details. Today was work time and a demonstration on methods to add chalk pastel. During work time I walked around commenting on student work and talking to them about what they incorporated in their images. I was able to talk with a group of boys today about comics and video games; I recognized some things they were referencing and once asked about it they opened up immediately. They began telling me about games, why they did what they did, and joking about funny things that happened.

I'm really starting to enjoy working with these students and I can tell that the majority of them are comfortable with my presence. I had a number of them start discussions with me today that hadn't before. It's sad to think that my time with them is wrapping up and I'm just starting to get to know them.