Lesson 9: Individual Lesson Planning

Working off the big idea of memories, I would plan on students taking the memory of a significant object/person/event from their lives, creating a visual representation of the object/person/event (through a photograph, drawing, etc...) and then telling a story about the object/person/event in text form.

To gain a different perspective, the students would then produce a text or story based on the point of view of the object/person/event itself [similar to the studio activity based upon Donald Lipski's work (Walker, p.21)].

This would not only lend a different perspective, but also (hopefully) create empathy for the object/person/event before creating the actual art.  It would be important for the students to try and recall the smells, textures, sounds and emotions associated with the memory in order to get more than a superficial treatment.

After creating the visual representation of the memory, the text of the stories related to the memory would be incorporated into the image, perhaps through cutting out selected "important" words from the stories and pasting them onto or around the image.  The idea of including text in art was taken from Howardena Pindell's work- creating a disarrayed puzzle that must be pieced together for meaning.

Taking the exercise a step further, the students could then create stories based on the images and text created by others, adding more words to the visual representations through collaboration and layering.  

References:

Walker, S. (2001). Teaching meaning in artmaking. Worcester, MA: Davis Publications.

Images courtesy of Google images.

Lesson 9: Overview

I've spent a lot of time sorting through ideas in my head, trying to sketch an outline out of everything floating around in there.

Enduring idea: I came up with the big/enduring idea of memories.  Memories are often more about pictures in our head rather than words, but in this art application, I thought it would be interesting to combine pictures and text.

Key concepts:  these include empowerment, recognizing and empathizing with different perspectives, emotions, permanence/impermanence, and meaning.

Key concepts about contemporary art as public pedagogy:  some key concepts would be metaphor- the transfer of emotion into poetic form; intertextuality- the social context of image and meaning residing in the relationship between object, discourse, and viewer; collaboration- connectedness while still retaining power, and layering.

Essential questions:  What is the importance of memory and telling stories about ourselves?  Are there shared memories that are common across racial/ethnic/gender, etc... boundaries?  What role do emotions play in our memories?  Is the shared power of collaboration stronger than individual power?  These are some of the questions I've considered so far, with many more still to come.

Rationale: I chose memories as the enduring idea because I was thinking about how it is important for people to tell stories about themselves.  Telling our own stories about ourselves can be empowering.  I also thought about looking at memories from different perspectives in order to tell the story about an image from different points of view, kind of like Akira Kurosawa's movie Rashomon where the idea centers around what is truth, and does it really exist?  I think an exploration into memory can yield many benefits such as empowerment mentioned previously, but also an appreciation and respect for fellow humans.

Unit objectives:  These stem from the rationales above- empowerment, respect, collaboration, and hopefully a greater ability to critically analyze.

Standards:  Encourage disciplined creativity by using higher level critical thinking skills
                    Develop and promote self-expression
                    Make connections between visual art and other curriculum areas
                    Expand aesthetic and intellectual awareness
                    Challenge students to recognize their own ideas, values and beliefs and communicate them
                     through visual arts

                  

8: Performance Art & Performed Networks of Relations

In Stephen's story about the park bench, I was drawn to the different perspectives of those that used the bench on a daily basis: pigeons, an elderly man, a young mother, the grounds crew, teenagers, young children, newlyweds, etc...  My idea for a lesson plan would be a field trip for students to go to a park with a bench area such as this to merely observe the daily flow of the space and how different people interact with the bench and use it for their own purpose.  Students when then create their own stories about what happened with a specific instance on the bench that day.  Perhaps their stories could be printed out and posted on the bench for people to pause, read and reflect upon during their own time on the bench.


Laura March's photo of the construction site in Puerto Rico made me think about the concept of imperialism and our view of the 'other.'  This may be a good instance to make students think about their assumptions made about other people and and how other people are viewed as invading the territory of others.  Maybe in this way, difficult issues like slavery and imperialism can be brought up in the safety of the classroom for discussion and contemplation.  Young children are often interested in construction equipment, so this might be a great opportunity to make them think about the perspective of the workers in such a situation.


Laura McGowen's story about the fund raising drive was touching, but also a dose of reality for how many of us lead our day to day lives.  I immediately identified with the idea of 'bad' news overwhelming our daily lives.  I think a good project would be for children to peruse daily papers or news websites with the purpose of finding positive stories.  These articles could then be presented in a collage to show that there are positive aspects to the news, although they are often hard to find.  Many of these instances aren't front page material, but perhaps by pointing them out, people may stop and reflect upon the good things happening on a daily basis instead of the bad things.