Designing Lesson Prompts

When designing lesson prompts you have to take a lot of big, complex ideas and strategically go about explaining it so it's digestible for students.

Our reading (chapters 3-4 of Teaching Meaning in Artmaking by Sydney R. Walker) discussed how you have to build skills and a knowledge base with students to make introducing those big ideas and certain activities possible. Ideally each lesson can build off each other until the students can reach the overall end goal in developing their skills and knowledge to a certain point by the end of the year.

This is why I put the thought bubble over the letters and made the type on the typewriter mostly illegible, to show there is a divide between having lesson plan ideas and having a concrete plan you can articulate with words that will make sense when it's introduced to the students (and the problem to solve as the teacher is how to bridge the divide).

I consider teaching and crafting good pedagogy to be an art form because it's about solving problems and the reading discusses how artmaking is all about solving problems: "technical, aesthetic, stylistic, conceptual, and expressive."

Students will grapple with conceptual problems in how a viewer may read their image differently depending on the choices they make with the principles and elements of design.

How line, shape, form, color, texture, space and value are used to create pattern, contrast, emphasis, balance, proportion and scale, harmony, and rhythm/movement.

Realizing they have the power to make specific choices in designing visual strategies in their artwork that can push their communication skills and emotional effect on who views it to a new level is empowering.

To prompt students to explore this process, the reading discussed introducing big ideas or themes that students can personally connect with or be curious about exploring. Then challenging students to focus their exploration through that theme using a certain medium. The strongest prompts ask them to explore the big ideas introduced, seek new perspectives, explore an art medium and work within a few set limitations to express themselves in relation to the theme. The proof that the lesson plan is strong is when all the students follow the directions and can use critical thinking skills to produce different looking results to reach the same end goal. While limitations or rules can be constricting if pushed too far, limitations can also be an important ingredient in prompting problem solving and idea generation. This rewards diversity of thought in a way in which kids can also learn new ways to tackle problems from each other.

The reading discusses encouraging kids to think deeply and explore themes and prompt them to ask questions and be curious about the world as an important part of the artmaking process. A way to do that is by asking them to explore a theme/big idea by asking the students questions relating to the chosen theme/big idea through:

• Transformation: altering a subject from it's normal representation by changing characteristics

  • What if clocks could melt? what if a closepin was taller than you? What if you had wings?

    
    

• Disruption: similarly focuses on making the mundane extraordinary and forcing the viewer to approach what they are familiar with with a new perspective. Changing how someone goes about perceiving something common.

  • Would you view the experience of roasting marshmallows differently if they were being roasted over a fire vs in a dragon's fiery breath? Or if an anthropomorphic marshmallow was eating the marshmallow?

  • How can you change how you perceive something? How does how you interact with an idea change when you show it through a soundscape vs paper mache vs clay vs fabric vs puppet vs drawing? Can you wear the art or interact with it? Is it something made of multiples that everyone can add to?

    
    

• Concealment: choosing to hide or reveal specific information

  • Is the composition a close up on a subject, showing great detail of the subject but concealing the context of the background?

  • Is an object concealed in a box you have to open to reveal whats inside?

  • Is there purposefully context missing from an image that would make the viewer curious and ask specific questions?

    
    

• Illogical Combination: seemingly unrelated things are brought together to be juxtaposed to force the viewer to create new meaning

  • If you put an egg next to a chicken, vs next to a skillet vs next to a snake vs next to a hammer vs next to a UFO vs next to a "beware the lock ness monster sign" vs next to a rabbit vs next to a cloud vs next to a playground slide vs next to a key vs next to a bee keeper suit vs next to a cowboy boot -does it change how you make sense of the object?

    
    

• Opposition: including two oppositional things in one scene

  • The sun and moon, something hot and something cold, something icky and something cozy, something cute and something spooky

The other great take-away I took from the reading is that setting up a big idea or theme allows students to create a series of work all relating to the big idea.

While focusing a lot of time and effort into producing one final product is a skill, there is more room for mistakes and the exploration of ideas and materials if students are asked to experiment with their approach in a series. A series of related shorter tasks each with it's own spin and building off of the last will keep them engaged and give them the opportunity to learn from each attempt. And an engaging prompt that can somehow connect to their wish to express their past experiences or new experiences and gained knowledge will keep them engaged when making a series. But a series allows students to keep thinking deeper and deeper about a concept or idea, adding more and more perspectives as they build on an idea. Getting to add to a short series makes mistakes in performing each task valuable as they get more chances to be informed by their mistakes and use that knowledge in other tasks that relate.