Middle school art class.

Girl #1: Miss P? Is the Internet shut down today?
Me: No.
Girl #1 (to Girl #2): You’re a liar. You owe me a dollar.
Girl #2: You’re so gullible.

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As an art teacher I try to provide structure according to California’s state standards for art. I also feel that art students need some time to explore materials, ideas and art books according to their unique interests. That’s why I came up with Free Draw Fridays at both the middle school and high school.

There are usually a lot of different activities going on on Fridays.

• Catch up. Students who have fallen behind on the week’s project because of an absence (or whatever reason) can catch up to their classmates. Today I have a good number of kids working on their character nichos still: recreating the altar face, or creating or painting thier sculptures. Students can also make up absences on this day.
• Art books. I often bring in 5-10 books from my home library for students to check out for the class period only. I tried a combination of art history books and art instruction books at first. Nobody wanted the art history books unless they were about graffiti art or comic art. By contrast, they are very much interested in art instructions books. I have books on how to draw all the traditional subjects such as animals, plants, people, buildings, and the like. I also have books on how to draw robots, crime noir comic books, superheroes, manga, fantasy creatures, Looney Tunes characters, caricatures, and hip hop characters. These are very popular.
• Coloring books. I have purchased about 25 different coloring books from which I make photocopies. These are not your kindergarten-level Mickey Mouse coloring books. They are a variety of more advanced images in often intricate designs that require some calculation when creating a harmonious color scheme. Most of them are from the publisher Dover, and they cover a wide range of imagery from history and other cultures. I also own a couple of Ruth Heller’s “Designs for Coloring” series. She does gorgeous elaborate designs of a variety of subjects. I have her Cats and Tropical Fish coloring books. All of these images are a joy to color and give students a break for their left brains on a Friday. The designs also expose students to pattern, rhytym, color, emphasis, balance and other art concepts through their interaction with compositions by artists all over the world and throughout time. The Dover books I own are:
• African Designs
• North American Indian Design
• Ancient Egyptian Design
• Geometrical Design
• Japanese Designs
• Modern Art Masterpieces
• Book of Kells
• Famous American Paintings
• Medieval Tapestries
• William Morris Stained Glass
• Southwest Indian Designs
• Masks of the World
• Art Masterpieces
• Arabic Patterns
• Native American Masks
• Mexican Folk Art
• Viking Designs
• Bakst Ballet Designs
• Materials. My students have free access to the following art materials along with plenty of newsprint and copier paper:
• Crayons
• Colored pencils
• Markers
• Oil pastels
• Colored drawing chalk
• Charcoal: pencils, compressed sticks, and willow
• Glue
• Scissors
• Rulers
• Compasses
• Protractors, french curves and triangles
• Graphite drawing pencils
• Watercolor, brushes, water cups, and palettes
• Colored Sharpie markers (high school only)
• Rules.
• Students must respect the proper use of materials.
• Students must clean brushes and other watercolor materials well.
• Students must clean up their tables if they get messy.
• Students must return all materials to the labeled bins in the supply cabinet.
• Students must be working on something art-related during the whole period. No homework from other classes, and no writing notes or letters to friends unless they are mainly drawings. No slacking off and staring at the wall or mostly just having conversations.
• Students may use the student computers to do art-related searches/research.

UPDATE 2/4/07: Student Work

Here are some example of my middle school students’ creations on Free Draw Fridays:

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Curricula by Dawn Pedersen

I’ve had a couple of years’ experience now building curricula. I started with web design and Photoshop classes at Sacramento City College. When I first started teaching college, I was surprised that a teacher was lucky if they much of a blueprint. They can get suggestions of previous textbooks, but typically they are expected to create a class from scratch within certain guidelines. While this challenge is daunting, I love the freedom in it too. I love being my own boss and drawing up the map.

I’ve had much the same freedom at Esparto Unified with my art and drama classes. In fact, I wasn’t even given guidelines by the school. So I’ve used the California State Standards to guide me, along with constant reflection upon what has been effective, what the students are asking for, and what the Principals are asking for. These are nowhere near perfect. I post them here to help others with lesson ideas, but I have many, many improvements I expect to make for next year.

• Art Curriculum for 2006-2007 Academic Year: Grades 6-12
• Drama Curriculum for 2006-2007 Academic Year: Grades 9-12

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