– Lesson Plans –
Developing Skills to Construct Large Structures… or…Building Building-Building
Essential Question(s):
What effect does the underlying structure have on the outward appearance and the whole? How does art use structure to make order out of chaos?
Rationale:
Structure is a basic concept that is pervasive in our lives but is seldom taught overtly so that a student can use it with intention. We guide students through structures, demand that they follow structures, and punish them for operating outside of these elusive structures, too frequently without an explanation that they can understand or appreciate. This unit hopes to elicit an understanding of the importance of structure in an artwork, architecture, and by extension, life. To show the value of structure to make order out of chaos.
Lesson 1: Learning to Build a Building to Learn (Design-a-school)
Students will plan a layout for a school on graph paper and then sketch their favorite part of the school.
Lesson 2: Broadway Boogie Woogie (An Homage to Piet Mondrian)
Students will study the life and work of Piet Mondrian and see how he tried to use structure and color to impose order on his world.
Lesson 3: Hot in the City (Warm and cool skyline paintings)
Students will paint cool colored skies and warm colored cities and then cut them out and paste them together.
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iI: Identity in a Digital Age
Essential Question(s):
How do we see ourselves in an age of digital media? How do we define ourselves by what we consume? How does media affect how we express ourselves?Rationale:
High school is a time when adolescents will begin to explore their identity, who they are as individuals and members of a wider society. The philosophical struggles that that exploration requires can be difficult to manage in an ever-increasingly complex existence. The lure of distraction from their digital devices, online interactions, and bombardment of external stimuli in the form of consumable media, can make it even harder for a student to think about who they are and what their role is in their society. The aim of this unit is to prompt the student to consider what affect the digital media has on their perception of themselves and their place in the world with the intent of helping them separate the ego from the digital façade.
Lesson 1 - Self-Portrait Collage
Students will make a mosaic self-portrait from images from the electronic media they consume most.
Lesson 2: Mario Art (your hero meets high art, Kahinde Wiley style)
Students will take a character from their favorite game/website/video and place them as the subject of a famous painting.
Tron’d (digitized into the world of your favorite character)
Students will draw themselves in the world of their favorite character.
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