Teaching Clip, Shot and Edited Spring 2008
Project: PERSONALITY MURAL WINDOWS, Middle school mural painting, 7th grade, 2008.Donald McKay K-8 School, 122 Cottage Street, East Boston
June 2008
6th, 7th, & 8th Graders collaborate on a set of nautical themed window panels.
Getting the okay from the administration to start painting the school was just the beginning. The hard work has just begun! Working with Ms. Robles and Ms. Troxell, hundreds of middle school students planned unique ideas that reflected their community and personality, and were asked to present it to reviewers. Students connected their mural proposal to an identity themed class project, and painted their unique ideas, on the harsh metal grates surrounding the building. Through these murals, students earned representation and personal stake in their underserved community.
Project: ARTISTIC BOOKS
Donald McKay K-8 School, 122 Cottage Street, East Boston
Objective: Students create artistic books that challenge traditional ideas of what a book should be. Focusing on exploring an idea to create a complete narrative, students research a topic and use it to teach classmates. Mass Standards:5. Purposes and Meanings in the Arts.
Project: ALTERNATE COLOR WHEEL
Frederick Middle School A Pilot School of Boston Public Schools
270 Columbia Road, Dorchester, MA Mass. Standards:1-Methods, Materials, and Techniques.2-Elements and principles in the arts. Objective: Students explore color relationships. Students chose one hue, wrote reflections, and created a final piece. Objective: students create a piece that uses the color properties they discovered, or their own newly assigned attributes! Assessment: Discussion, peer share, speed round critiques.“When you find your perfect hue, write a little about it. What properties does your hue have? What language does it speak? What is its biggest fear? Now, based on your findings and reflections on this color, create a portrait of him, her, or it!”
Project: TRANSFORMATIONS AND REFLECTIONS
Objective: Students explore transferring processes, such as liquid transfers, printmaking, and tape transfers.“What does transformation mean to you? How can you show your personal understanding of “transferring” in your art?” A discussion of physical, personal, social, and emotional transformation allowed students to discover new interpretations.Mass Standards:1-Methods, Materials, and Techniques. 7-Roles of Artists in the Communities. Objective: Students choose images based on their interpretation of “transfer” and “transformation.” They then create a final piece using two of the methods taught.
Project: Safety drawings, Kindergarten, 2009. Objective: Young students explore what it means to be safe in your community by brainstorming as a class, and forming their own ideas and combine writing and drawing. "What does safe mean, and how can we say it with words and pictures?"
Project:CREATIVE POSITIONING FIGURE DRAWINGS, Figure Drawings, 7th grade, 2009.
Objective: Middle school students use ovals and squares to compose a pencil figure drawing. Students will decide on how to position their arms and legs to create more interesting compositions.
INTEGRATING STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS
“You are the best teacher in the school because you let us be explorers, and because you tell us you can’t be wrong in drawing…like when we were doing drawings of trees and flowers, and Christian wanted to make a 3D sun, and probably other teachers wouldn’t let him make it 3D, and he would have had to do flowers that look the same as everybody else.”
-5th grade student, speaking candidly about our style of integrating special needs students.
This special needs student's work inspired a 7th grade student...to make a solar system mobile. This interest became her Artistic Book Project. Supporting her with her process meant not only providing her with art materials, but also working with the science teacher to share books and resources, and requiring her to do research on her own about space and the planets.She ended up constructing our Solar System out of a box, paint, string, glitter, and tape, and used her new knowledge about the solar system and our arts resources to make parts scientifically accurate. To make her project a complete idea, and to bring it full circle, she created an accompanying book, which she illustrated. Assessment was a written response and reflection which was later incorporated into the written portion of her Artistic Book.
- Ceramics
- Jewelry
- Printmaking
- Illustration
- Digital Illustration
- Painting
- Video Editing
- Animation
- Drawing
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY: Creating lessons with flexible objectives, personalized assessment models, and relatable cultural and social contexts challenges students to find innovative ways to bring their own interests into art, and art into the rest of their lives.
CREATING LESSONS WITH FLEXIBLE OBJECTIVES
With all my lesson objectives I strive to give students freedom in their thinking process, gradually allowing more flexibility if they need it. I have found that by maintaining a basic lesson structure within a flexible framework, students meet high expectations, mastered vocabulary, and produced work they genuinely care about.
ASSESSMENT AND STUDENT REFLECTION
Gauging student progress, understanding, and dedication can be assessed by any number of assessment models. To track success in my art classroom, students and teachers rely on peer critiques, classroom discussions, self assessment questionnaires, reflection writing, and peer evaluations.
ARTIST PORTFOLIO
ALANA ROBLES-ARTIST
My Own Work: Sculpture, Computer Illustration, & Pencil Drawings
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)