Studio Art & Design
Lesson Samples
Below are some of my lessons I have developed in the last year. I use themes for my units, and this year's theme has been about communicating our own message about social justice issues affecting our community.
Non-traditional ZINES for social change lesson
Lesson challenge: Create a mini zine educating the public on one way (big or small) we can make a difference within your social justice topic
Lesson Materials:
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Sketchbooks to plan
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Heavy weight paper
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Food stain
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Beets​
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Tea
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Coffee
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Food dye
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Embroidery needle
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Thread
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Fine tip sharpie
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Camera for documentation
Lesson presentation
ZINE lesson process documentation
and student samples
ZINE gallery walk
and virtual critique
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Tunnel Book
Lesson
Inspired and adapted from Susan Silva's tunnel book presentation
This lesson challenges the students to work sculpturally with paper, while also diving deeper into their chosen social justice topics. We introduce the lesson with an explanation of what a tunnel book is, a highlighted tunnel book book artist, and then we review the 5 topics the students selected as a class. Here is an example.
Lesson Materials:
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Sketchbooks to plan
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Construction paper
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Exacto knives
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Liquid school glue
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Drawing materials (optional)
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Camera for photo documentation
Tunnel Book
Presentation
Ceramics Unit
This unit is broken up into 3 different lessons.
Lesson 1
Intro to clay presentation and notes
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This presentation walks the students through:
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What clay is
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How to properly care for the clay, materials, and our classroom
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Ceramics vocabulary words
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The different stages of clay
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A brief history of ceramics
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Storing our clay projects
Next, we review the vocabulary terms and have a clay exploration day.
During this exploration, the students get to know how to set up their clay workstation, the material, the tools, a few techniques, storage, and clean-up.
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Lesson 2
Free design tile
The free design tile lesson gives students full autonomy in their design choices, while staying within their size limit of a 4"x4" tile base. This lesson will help the students get to know clay as a medium. They will experiment with additive and subtractive design elements to their tile using different tools and techniques while also learning how clay reacts, dries, responds to gravity, how it handles the kiln, and more.
1. The plan: Before receiving clay the students will submit a design plan containing their labeled additive and subtractive elements and measurements
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2. Clay work time with process documentation.
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3. Glazing the tiles after the bisque fire.
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Lesson 3
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Form vs. Function
Communicating your own topic message through ceramics
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Lesson 3 presentation
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Introduce the conceptual art movement
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Introduce contemporary artist, Doreen Garner, and how she uses conceptual art elements in her work to communicate her message(s).
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Reflect and discuss
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Introduce contemporary ceramic artists: Roberto Lugo, Charity White
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Introduce our lesson challenge:
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Planning
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Worktime
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Each project workday schedule will have a built peer feedback discussion as a class. The class will give feedback to between 3 - 5 projects, to help the artists in the creation process.
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