I have fallen in love with the collaborative wall connections/ symbolic constructions lesson on the Spiral Curriculum website. I actually explored the lesson plans before I did the reading from Walker for this week, and loved the idea of a collaborative project which could work with art as well as other class subjects. After reading Walker Chapters 4 and 5, I realized that the reason this project would work so well was because it was simple in nature, yet required so much artistic research, focused on art-making problems, and held onto a strong big idea throughout the entire project. This is a quick project that can have a big impact.
What this lesson consists of:
1. Have your students choose a theme for the entire class to work with; this could be anything from each students favorite memory to what WWII was about, to the human body and it’s anatomy. Any theme will do.
2. Have each student gather information about said theme and come in with an image based off of the information
3. Each student creates a “symbol” based on this image that represents the theme to them
4. This symbol is cut out of a large piece of black construction paper or mat board and they are then all arranged (with the help of the students) on a large blank wall
This project immediately stuck a chord after I read Walker chapter 4 where Walker talked about art-making problems and how they can enhance and expand upon the big idea you are working with. The problems Walker suggests in this chapter as “art-making problems” are transformation, concealment, disruption, illogical combination, and opposition. Think about this project as a whole. EVERY ONE of these art-making problems would have to be called upon in the creation of this mural. Students would have to transform a complex image, which may hold a million pieces of information, down into one simple symbol. That’s like taking a book and turning it into a word. Concealment would be dealt with in the explanation of how symbols aren’t meant to be a literal translation of an idea, but rather a simple image, which strikes up an idea. They will have to choose what parts of their information and image to conceal, and which parts to show. Disruption, illogical combination, and opposition are all things that would be brought up when hanging the pieces to form the mural. After making all their symbols, they have to work together and discuss issues such as these in order to create a unified mural that says what they want it to. The meaning will change based off of how they place things next to one another and so on. This lesson so clearly tackles the idea of art-making problems unified by a big idea, that I would actually try and start a unit with this so that students would understand these issues at a core level before moving on to more complex problems.
In chapter 5, Walker talked about boundaries in art, and how they can be both helpful and destructive at the same time, but in different ways. Now, this isn’t as relevant to this project as chapter 4 was, but it is still entwined in it. Because of the nature of this project, the students are extremely limited in what they can create. They must all create a symbol which would be the same height and close to the same width, they must all work in black paper, and they must all work from the same big idea or theme. The freedom and exploration in this project however, comes from the fact that they can create any image they want within that context. Say they were working on this mural in collaboration with the Biology department at their high school. The theme could simply be human anatomy. The student would have so much independence and freedom to choose to research what would interest them. They could choose anything from brain development to toe nails. Because different things are bound to interest different students, they would all come up with very unique symbols, and then there would be the interesting task of finding a way to tie all of them together and the questions that would raise. Let’s go with my previous example of doing this for the biology class. Say a student who did their symbol to represent heart attacks placed theirs next to a symbol to represent emotion. This would carry a deeper meaning. Now say that same heart attack symbol was placed next to one representing the circulatory system. These two placements would carry very different meanings. There are just so many different forms a project like this could take. The balance of boundaries/ limitations and freedoms in this project is well suited for students who are new to artistic thinking, however it could easily be adapted to ALL levels of artists. The more advanced the students, the more complex you make your mural and the more questions you as the teacher are able to raise to make them think critically.
I just love this project. I will totally be doing this the first chance I get with my class. Kindergarten through college, this would be a great fun little lesson which would teach many artistic concepts in a way that would be easy for students to understand.
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