Perseverance: A Remote Workshop
Lesson Title: Perseverance through translucent mural making
Targeted grade Level: 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade
Anticipated Time Frame: 2 hours
Conceptual Structure/Big Idea: Perseverance
Why is this a relevant concept for students to explore? How does it connect to contemporary culture and context?
Perseverance is when someone continues doing something even when it may be difficult or discouraging. It is important to teach children how to persevere through life’s challenges by showing them examples of others who have persevered and ways to manage difficult situations so that they have tools to work through the hard parts without giving up. Perseverance is an important concept in art, as a lot of children try to compare their early work to more skilled masters and feel discouraged by their lack of immediate expertise; we need to teach students that skills are learned and get better with practice and persistence. This is also applicable to other areas of life, particularly this past year when things changed rapidly and students had to face new challenges such as remote learning, limited resources, and other ambiguities that threatened their safety and security. By encouraging students to persevere through these challenges, we are helping them to learn goal-oriented mindsets, patience while they develop skills and get better at difficult tasks, and confidence that comes from accomplishing something even when it was hard.
Key Concepts
Students will learn about the versatility of art.
Students will learn how to explore available resources to create art.
Students will explore some foundational concepts such as color mixing, layering, and transparency/opacity concepts.
Why is it important for students to know these concepts?
1. Often time students will have preconceived ideas about what art is, who makes it, and where it exists. Helping students to understand that art can exist in many different places and empowering them to create art in unconventional ways stimulates their creative impulses and can lead to creative problem solving in other areas as well.
2. Teaching students to use whatever resources are available helps to overcome barriers that may discourage creative expression. Students do not need fancy supplies or tools to create unique and compelling works of art, and riffing with available materials helps students to see the world through a more creative lens. Students will learn to persevere in limiting environments.
3. Creating one’s own paints requires experimentation, which in turn requires perseverance. We are combining multiple concepts throughout this project, and there are a fair amount of variables (such as consistency, color, and application). Teaching students how to explore and troubleshoot processes will encourage them to persevere in ambiguous situations.
Objectives (what students will DO):
Students will develop an artistic vision/intention through a planning process.
Students will execute multiple steps to create their own window paint, prepare a work area, and apply new techniques and skills to create a unique work of art.
Students will explore conceptual elements to create a work of art that reflects meaningful expression.
How do the objectives fully support learning and how do they connect to the students’ lives? (What evidence can you provide that makes you say this?)
1. Incorporating planning steps into this project will help students to organize their thoughts and order the tasks into manageable steps. This step also helps students to be intentional about their work.
2. Students will have hands-on opportunities to develop their own materials, prepare their own workspace, explore suggested application techniques, and will be encouraged to create new improvised application techniques. This will help students to understand structural components of making art (like the materials used) and ways to expand on foundational elements (using found or altered objects to apply paint to the surface).
3. Students will create a work of art that expresses a personal viewpoint that has an important connection for them. Incorporating meaning while developing an artistic voice will help students to use art making to process thoughts, feelings and experiences.
Essential Questions (BIG overarching questions):
How can challenges help us to grow?
How can art help us to process those challenges, express our thoughts & emotions, and communicate with others?
How are these questions meaningful to the student? How do you know?
1. All people face challenges, by modifying their generalized approach to these challenges can help create more resilient students. We want to help students shift their paradigm to question ”Is this challenge going to be a stumbling block or a stepping stone?” Empowering students with confidence enough to navigate challenges effectively helps to provide a solid foundation for them to problem-solve in the future.
2. Making the connection to art as a means of creative thinking, expression and communication can help students to process challenges in a constructive way. We want the students to see art as a multifunctional and multidimensional outlet that has the potential to do many things at once, particularly as an aid for processing difficult challenges.
Standards:
NVAS:
VA:Cr1.2.2- Make art or design with various materials and tools to explore personal interests, questions, and curiosity.
VA:Re8.1.2- Interpret art by identifying the mood suggested by a work of art and describing relevant subject matter and characteristics of form.
VA:Cr3.1.2- Discuss and reflect with peers about choices made in creating artwork.
Michigan:
ART .VA .II .3 .1- Apply materials and techniques to problem solve in the creation of art
2.ART.VA.III.3.5- Discuss how personal experiences influence the creation of art.
The standards we chose support each other in the progression of learning. The format of the lesson allows for the discovery of multiple standards.
Connecting and Responding:
Teaching Resources: (art work, videos, books, etc)
Art: (Artists and insert thumbnail photo of examples shared)
Untitled (skull)
Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1981
Untitled
Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1981
Brown Eggs
Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1960-1988
I Chose Love
Hektad, 2019
They Tried to Bury Us, They Didn’t Know We Were Seeds
Brandan Bmike Odums, 2019
Detroit Industry Murals: South Wall
Diego Rivera, 1932-1933
The Tyger
Jim Vision, 2020
Nuit de Noel
Henri Matisse, 1952
Rainbow Shabbat
Judy Chicago, 1992
Agate Window, Grossmunster, Zurich,
Sigmar Polke, 2006-2009
What opportunities will the students have to RESPOND to art?
We chose Javaka Steptoe’s book Radiant Child to share with our students. We also found a Youtube video of Steptoe reading his book which we thought would be an excellent way to share the story; through the author/illustrator’s own voice. Steptoe narrates the story of Jean Michel Basquiat, we chose a few of Basquiat’s pieces to share with our students to bring the story to life. We also chose a few stained glass pieces to demonstrate how the translucency of windows can transform the imagery in a work of art. We decided to include several examples of murals demonstrating strength and power that relates back to our theme of perseverance by finding strength and power within ourselves, as well as encouraging students to think big! We chose a diverse group of artists to showcase to promote diversity and inclusive practices.
CREATING
Lesson Plan Sequence
10 minutes- Introducing the teachers, students
10 minutes- we will be introducing the lesson and the book
8 minutes- book read video
10 minutes- Book discussion
10 minutes- Talk about other artist
15 minutes- Introducing the project and mural making
10 minutes- Pre-planning layout
5 minutes- Creating window paint
30 minutes- Work time
10 minutes- Photographing, Uploading and Commenting
10 minutes- Wrap up
Share rationale for choices in teaching and learning strategies, here is where I should see additional evidence of the readings. How will you scaffold the lesson to maximize learning?
For the first 10 minutes we will be introducing ourselves to the students and then having the students introduce themselves to us and the class. We could also do a feeling chart in the chat to gage how they are doing for the day. They can just respond to this in the zoom chat.
For the next 10 minutes we will begin introducing the lesson and the book, Radiant Child The story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat By Javaka Steptoe. We will also talk about the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat a little bit before reading to give some context on the book.
After providing context we will be reading the book, we are choosing to have a video of the book being read on the screen to help students see the book more clearly online and also will allow them to watch it on their own if the connection isn't as strong.
After reading the book we will be discussing the book and the message that is created in the book.
After discussing the book we will go on to talk about a few other artists who have shown this concept of Perseverance through their art and their art career.
We will then go on to talk about the project that we will be creating and the significance of creating our own murals. We will also be going over our exemplars and how we can use different materials as stamps on your window
There will be a short amount of time for a rough pre-planning of the layout and where they want things to be placed on their piece.
We then will go on to demonstrate/ watch video on how to make the window paint
There will be 30 minutes of work time given for the students to create their mural. During this we will be on zoom in case anyone has any questions they need answered or help with anything in their project.
Finally we will be photographing our window and uploading them to the group padlet where we can view them and their peers can also view and leave comments. We will be requiring everyone to leave 1-2 comments on others' posts.
For the last 10 minutes we will be wrapping up the lesson and asking questions to the students on the lesson and the book.
Differentiation/Accommodations/Modifications (For differently abled on both ends of the spectrum)
- Various types of paint
- Various utensils to apply paint
- Stencils
- Stamps
- Tape
Share rationale for each
- The importance of having a variety of options to choose from is beneficial to provide students with comfortability and choice within their own decision-making process and art creation. This is beneficial to all students.
- Going off of the last point, some students are sensitive to materials that stimulate the various senses. Some students may prefer to paint with their fingers while others may strictly need to use brushes and other such utensils. Some paints have different textures and smells to them, allowing students to decide which will be the best fit for themselves and their needs.
- Stencils, Stamps, and Tape provide all students with the option of getting a part of the image exactly as they want it. These methods also allow for crisp, straight lines.
- Students with varying needs (e.g. muscle spasms, low-vision, shaking hands, etc.) also benefit greatly from this. It will make the art making process much easier for them. They need not stress about worries of messing the image up or not being able to paint cleanly.
Assessment Strategies: (Connecting and Responding) What evidence from performances and products demonstrate deep understanding and generalizable new knowledge?) What evidence of pre-thinking, in process ideation and development will be required?
Assessing the students’ grasp of the Big Idea would be through the observation of each student’s decision making process in selecting imagery that personally empowers them in a way that will aid in their perseverance in difficult situations. Their own self-reflection will include discussing why the specific imagery that they chose empowers them and how they believe that it will prove useful in times of perseverance. They will be provided with a chance to discuss these things in their work during critiques in their Padlets. They will also be able to assess the provided works and respond/make comments on why/how the specific works portray methods and meanings of perseverance.
Share rationale for formative and summative assessment, HOW will this reveal knowledge acquired and how they will use it?
How will you know what your students have learned about:
• the big idea that they investigated
• the artistic concepts and depth of knowledgebase
• art creating and production/process
• reflecting on their own work and connecting and responding to other art work
•How will the students’ voices be represented in the assessment and presentation of their work?
Rationale here should discuss the significance of what was created and address prior knowledge (ideas, context etc) students will need to understand the lesson content.
For this project, I included a few process shots, such as my material, prepped surface, a work shot and then my final product. I was inspired by a combination of concepts. The first was feeling grounded and rooted, like I have a sturdy foundation from which to grow, and the second was the concept that I grow in all different and unexpected ways, and I consider that part of my strength and resiliency. I included some stained glass inspired geometric shapes because I was warming up and playing with the materials, and seeing how the light interacted with the paint as I ramped up to paint my tree. I used a lot of my allotted time to play with application techniques and colors, and then even made marks into the paint already applied to the surface. I had a lot of fun, and was pretty tickled with how much I enjoyed this process.
The students will need some foundational concepts for mixing paint colors (ie, yellow + red = orange). They will also probably take some time to explore application techniques and creative manipulations of the materials.
Materials/Tools/Art supplies needed
Paper, writing utensils (markers, crayons, or colored pencils), flour, tempera paint in a few color options, brushes or other painting utensils like sponges, some stamping utensil options (get creative here; apples cut in half, flowers, toys; whatever is safe getting covered in paint), tape (masking, painters), bowls for mixing paint, measuring utensils or spoons, paper towels and bath size towels to protect the floor, and access to a clean window (preferably a doorwall or window with a large unobstructed surface area)
What prior knowledge students will need to effectively use materials to express their ideas?
Students will need to plan out the broad shapes and “rough in” the imagery they want to use first before filling in details, so as to map out and use their space effectively.
Materials Distribution/Clean Up
- Materials will be pre-prepared and organized accordingly in designated bins-containers.
- Newspaper, painting tarps, or bath towels will be laid down first near the window where the students are working, with materials organized on top of them.
- Clean up will utilize the system of returning an item to its designated bin once use is finished. Any item that has paint on it will be washed using warm water and a mild soap. Disposable coverings (e.g. newspapers and painting tape) will be disposed of properly. Materials that are borrowed from parents will either be returned to the parents or put back in their designated places.
- Once the mural needs to be removed from the window, warm soap and mild water can be used to remove the paint. Using window cleaner and paper towel may be utilized to clean up additional remnants.
PRESENTING
For the final presentation students will be photographing and uploading their final pieces to the class Padlet.
Who is the audience? What kind of feedback will the artists receive?
The audience of the project will be the peers. After the students upload their project to the Padlet, students will be required to look at the works of their peers and view and leave comments and feedback.
