Students are ready to think of themselves as artists when they are given choices, and once they understand that, the emergent curriculum, which is based on their strengths and interests, is allowed to grow. For students who are accustomed to being told exactly what to do and when to do it, the idea that they are the ones who make the creative decisions can intrigue even the most unengaged adolescent.
Middle-school students can be challenging, joyful, hilarious, and downright confusing. Their physical bodies are in transition from child to adult, their brains are soaked in hormones that can make the simplest task overwhelming, and they are always seeking acknowledgement while simultaneously pushing back every adult in their world. Even with all of that, middle-school students are an exciting group of artists to teach and learn alongside.
TAB and the Emergent Curriculum
Using the Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB) pedagogy gives middle-school artists the opportunity to grow in magical ways. When the students are the artists and the classroom is their studio, they begin to understand that there are many answers to the question, What do artists do?
Students are ready to think of themselves as artists when they are given choices, and once they understand that, the emergent curriculum, which is based on their strengths and interests, is allowed to grow. For students who are accustomed to being told exactly what to do and when to do it, the idea that they are the ones who make the creative decisions can intrigue even the most unengaged adolescent.
Studios and Skill Builders
TAB, Choice, and the emergent curriculum works for my students. Our large art room is divided into various studios such as Drawing, Acrylic Painting, Watercolor, Mixed Media, and Sculpture. There are also pop-up studios for Fibers, Printmaking, and Clay that rotate based on student interest.
Each studio must be opened by the student using various skill builders. These skill builders are one of the only “required” assignments given and serve as a way for students to get their hands on a variety of materials while learning various techniques that can be used in their self-directed work.
To make these exercises even more student-centered, the skill builders are introduced using a flipped classroom model so students can open the studio on their own. Typically, four studio skill builders are posted in the LMS at a time, and students are given two weeks to self-navigate the opening.
The Painting Studio
When opening the Acrylic Painting Studio, students are required to show an understanding of color mixing by creating a primary, secondary, and tertiary color wheel using only primary colors. Once this is completed, the studio is open for them to use. For some students, this is where their painting exploration ends, but for many, it’s just the beginning!
Color-Mixing Exploration
Without fail, a small group of middle-school artists remain at the Acrylic Painting Studio and start using their arms and legs as makeshift canvases to explore color mixing. This usually begins with primary colors with black and white to create various skin tones. These explorations are painted in swatches on their arms or legs to check for color accuracy.
Students talk about the colors they’re creating and request peer guidance. I hear questions like, “Should I add a little blue to make it a bit darker?” and “Does my skin have more of a reddish tone or orangish?”
The conversation deepens into color theory and identity. Students compare the skin tones created by their complementary colors: “Your skin seems like it’s from blue and orange, but mine is more like yellow and purple.” Then they usually blow their own minds when they discover they can’t add black to a color that has already been mixed with white because it will give everything a gray look.
Students discuss how even though their skin colors are different, they can all be made using the same five colors. Maybe, just maybe, they take it one step further in understanding the constructed nature of perceived value based on skin color. Now the curriculum has emerged to meet them where they are and give them space and time to explore color and identity in authentic ways.
Meeting in the Middle
When we meet them in the middle, students amaze us. We want them to understand color mixing and theory to push their work in deeper ways. They want to choose how they used this new skill. When these curricular ideas collide, what emerges is phenomenal. Middle-school artists use their new skills and knowledge to investigate identity, race, and the constructed nature of their world. That is a middle all artists should have the chance to meet in.
Jen Rankey-Zona is fine arts director at Trinity Episcopal School in Charlotte, North Carolina, and board president of Teaching for Artistic Behavior. Jen@TeachingForArtisticBehavior.org
Resource
Teaching for Artistic Behavior
Art teachers share lessons that focus on student choice and Teaching for Artistic Behavior. Students use an everyday material to express their ideas in 2D and 3D form, experiment with digital drawing apps to alter self-portrait images through collage, engage in discussions about race and identity during a color-mixing exploration, participate in hands-on learning stations to investigate symmetry, and more.
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