Big Idea: Fear

So, for our first big idea of fear, I decided to look at the different types of fear. I wanted to take my lesson as a means to delve into what fear really means, and show students that fears can be personal, cultural, phobias, etc. I wanted students to start to connect with their own fears with this project. My lesson involves discussion of the different types of fears, journaling about their deepest fears and where they think they might stem from, or journaling about a cultural fear that they feel a close tie to in one way or another. They are then asked to take that fear and find a way to photograph themselves representing that fear using whatever props or such they feel might add to it. Following that (and for the main part of the lesson- I have 3D/ Sculpture), I have asked them to create a sculpture relating to the picture. I left the sculpture part of the lesson pretty open ended, they will get a large list of possible materials to use, but I wanted it to be more individualized, because I wanted them to think critically about how to best represent the fears they are working with. An example would be like a phobia of a spider, they may want to make one giant oversized spider attacking a human or something, as opposed to someone having fears of being bit by spiders may just sculpt a herd of a hundred tiny spiders in a box, etc. Get the idea? Anyways, it will be followed by a critique or a "pow-wow"- as Melissa puts it, where they will display their photographs and sculptures, and talk about what fears they see in one another's works. That's my lesson in a nutshell. I've pasted the lesson plan below if you want to see more in depth what I intend to do. Any advice or input would be appreciated guys! Thanks!

Exploring Fear

By: Nikita Luedke

Enduring Big Idea: “Fear”

            How fear manifests itself in your eyes

            How past and current artists visualized/ showed fear in their work

Essential Questions:

            What does “fear” mean to you?

            Are there different types of fear? Internal, cultural, learned, phobias, etc.)

            What are your biggest fears?

            How does scale, color, texture, media, etc. impact what art conveys?

            What artists worked with the concept of fear? How did they interpret it?

Objectives:

            The students will…

                        Explore what fear means to them

                        Think critically about what that fear could look like

                        Investigate the work of other artists’ interpretations of fear

                        Construct a 3 dimensional sculpture

Lesson Vignette:

            Anticipatory Set:

                        I will introduce the idea of fear and have an open discussion about what “fear” means, and what various types of fears there are. After that we will look at the art of Joshua Hoffine (a photographer whose work is all about childhood fears), Martin Mikolajczyk’s sculpture “fear”, Katherine Howard’s sculpture “friend of foe”, and the Roman sculpture “Laocoon and His Sons”, and talk about how all of these are representations (formally and conceptually) of the different types of fears. Finally, the students will be  asked to journal about their fears or cultural fears they feel strongly about.

            Body of Lesson:

                        Students will get in pairs and photograph each other (preferably after bringing in props), acting out the fear they have chosen to work with in a dramatic way. They will then be asked to create a sculpture using any material of their choice (a list of said materials will be provided so that this is not too overwhelming of a choice for them) to create a sculpture based off of their photograph and what it was trying to get across. There will be no scale limit/ requirement as I want this to be a critical part of their working process, to decide how the fear they are trying to show would manifest itself (multiple small pieces, one oversized piece, intermediate sized, etc.)

            Closure:

                        Students will do a critique (“pow wow”) where they will show both their photos and their sculptures side by side. The critique will focus on the other students talking about what possible fears they see in each piece, followed by the artist explaining the pieces. Grading will be based on craftsmanship, completion, execution, and overall, how well it shows the fear they are working with (which will be decided by the class during the critique).