Wednesday, February 19, 2014

assigning art journals to art students

The inside front cover of my “Art At The Museum” journal. The pocket on the left contains art history games I learned while taking a course at the St. Louis Art Museum for k-12 art certification.
      An excellent art journal reflects the personality and intimate experiences of it’s creator. My journals are about topics that I am interested in either exploring or sharing with others. These interests do not always appeal to the young however.
      I believe it is necessary for art teachers to keep assignments in the classroom current and challenging. Art activities are often influenced by trends but to produce work for this reason alone is not necessarily sound judgement. Fortunately, I discovered many years ago that educators can easily produce popular academic assignments for their students with just a bit of tenacity and a large portion of study.
      This summer I will be working on an art journal that I intend to use as a sampler in my future classroom. This is one of the many ‘perks’ of my teaching profession. In order for me to teach a project well, I must produce it myself. The sampler, I feel, should reflect diversity in both methods and topics in order for it’s contents to inspire so many different personalities inside an art classroom.
      I’ve posted here a brief listing of those pages that I’m considering for an art journal assignment in order for student industry/study to measure up to state and national academic standards. Apart from these required pages, my students should also be expected to include several of their own page ideas.

One of 50 some odd pages dedicated to lesson plan ideas from my
 “Art At The Museum Journal.” This page was dedicated
to a chair design project.

10 Broad Ideas for Art Journal Page Assignments:
  1. Include an illustrated poem on a page. The poem should either be written by you or be in the public domain. The poem should be about art and a work of art.
  2. Observe a behavior assigned in class and journal a reflection based upon your thoughts concerning the behavior.
  3. Watch and assigned video and create an artistic response to the video. Then record your response on a page in your journal.
  4. Read an assigned article and articulate a response to it on a journal page.
  5. Work with one or two other people in the classroom to create a collaborative work and then include a piece of it on a journal page.
  6. Reflect upon a visit to a museum, art fair, open art studio event or gallery exhibit as a journal entry. Include a couple of photographs depicting the event and yourself in the same photo as proof of your attendance there.
  7. Include a page inspired by your own genealogy.
  8. Include a page inspired by your own cultural heritage.
  9. Include a page using paper pop-up technology.
  10. Create a thematic page based upon the artistic technique of your favorite painter.
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