Based on your creation experience what are the possibilities and limitations of integrating performed images and media images to make a statement or tell a story?
I think this activity would be very useful when doing a unit of or reading a play in class. Students can create a tableux image of a scene in Shakespeare's Hamlet, for example. Being thoughtful about the composition in the tableux is very important to show their overall understanding of mood, character relationships, conflict and theme of the scene or story. The creative constraint of the still image limits students but is also helpful in pushing them to include only the most important themes and objects in the composition to communicate the mood, character, and themes. The challenge is to show their understanding in one still image or tableux.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kNmDd9gSvQG-n42JaLPfNYGGXs1ac9Vf/view
Monday, February 26, 2018
Catalogue of Critical Creativity
Creating with Words: Blackout Poetry
I've seen this used a lot in English classrooms. It gives the students a chance not just to read poetry, but to be poets themselves. In black poetry they highlight the words that mean a lot to them and cross out other words and phrases. In this sense, the student shows they know the deeper meaning/theme of the poem or their new composition and interpretation of it. I could use this in a unit on poetry or to better understand an article or text. It's important that teachers do what Burvall suggests: "Ask students to document the INTENTION behind their blackout poems by writing or recording their explanations" (147). This isn't just a piece of cool art to give to students without content. What students blackout shows their overall understanding of the theme and meaning. This activity asks students to construct, rearrange, juxtapose ideas, uncover hidden meanings and establish new relationships in the text.
Erasure poems are another option, they are a spin-off of black poetry!
Creating with Images: ImagED
Students find images to explain and show their understanding of a concept. The images must convey the essence of the concept. The three activities are Icon Challenge, Five-Card Flickr, and Two Images, One Question.The whole point is to synthesize complex ideas into simple but poignant images, like Burvall says, and thus students show understanding of content.
Icon Challenge: Students find or design icons, that stand as symbols to represent an idea or concept. They learn the important nature of icons as a means of communication. A series of icons can tell a sequential story, just like the EMOJI story activity.
Again, it is important that teachers have "students explain their intention--why they chose those particular aspects of the subject to translate into icons and why they designed the icons as they did," as Burvall suggests (170).
I really like the idea of creating a library catalogue of "four-icon novels" and displaying the posters around the class or school.
Five-Card Flickr
In a nutshell, students can use this activity to help them create a story from the images, or to use images to convey a story or match the content of a story, poem, text, speech or concept.
Students really have to think deeply and know the content to match it with images.
I really like the "Three of Me" activity that Burvall described on page 174.
Two Images, One Question
I can do this with my students when they are working on oral presentations and research topics. The images and question act as essential prompts to the research. The students will have to think metaphorically and critically about the images they select. Burvall says, "The images students find should serve as prompts for their presentation of the information (172)". Then students come up with an "original" question or discussion prompt for the third slide.
Creating with Sounds: Playlist a Life
This time, instead of using pictures or icons to demonstrate a concept or story, students use music to demonstrate the life or times of a subject. They make a playlist, choosing songs because of their lyrics, tone or themes that go along with the subject. They find songs that represent significant moments in the story or about the person. Consider having students make a playlist for a book like The Great Gatsby. Have them write a couple of sentences on why they chose each song. Scaffold student learning by having them do their own autobiographical playlist first. This representing things through a musical lens, would appeal to a lot of kids!
Creating with the Body: Dallowinian Party
Burvall described this activity: "Demonstrate the personality traits and mindsets, relationships, and dynamics of a group of individuals or characters by staging an improvised, role-play dinner party. During periodic breaks in the action, use first-person, in-character, stream-of-consciousness journaling to explore the attendees' thoughts and feelings" (217). It also says, "Dallowinian Party requires students to apply their knowledge of characters and personalities to an interactive and original context" (219). The teacher should be a facilitator of the overall interaction and conversation.
I think this activity would be very useful to help my students understand character personalities and motivations by taking on the role of the character or acting as them. How fun! I could definitely see this activity working for some of the books we read in class. The students will need to understand the character very well in order to play their role and behaviors. This activity also encourages student WRITING with their stream-of-consciousness reflections, killing two birds with one stone. The debriefing at the end allows them to reflect as well on the whole experience. In order for this "party" to not get out of hand, the students should know it is a graded oral presentation or performance. The teacher or a student can serve as the host of all the guests at the dinner! All the guests should have a relationship to the host.
The pre-activities are very important as well, like building a family tree to show how the guests are connected or know one another, as well as the list/bowl of "interruptions". I also love how students can dress up as the characters for this! They will really enjoy that part. And they can have food...sounds like something every kid will like. I would do this activity as an assessment but also as a sort of reward for getting through a unit or difficult book. What if one or two students don't know the character they are role-playing? How do I keep all my students accountable to know their character so they won't interfere with transmitting the content and understanding to other students? I don't want this to get out of control. Overall, I love the interactivity of this!
Creating with Stuff: Board Game Remix
Have students create a board game with objectives, rules, game pieces and game play based on the context of a story like say, Beowulf or Homer's Odyssey or Iliad. I think this would work best with a story with a lot of action and plot, or the hero's journey. By creating a board game, students demonstrate their understanding of a given plot line, process or journey, and things such as conflict, climax, resolution. The game design must represent the key information and concepts of the book.
However, there are other game options besides just making a typical board game, such as remixing and mashing up games such as word games, strategy games, and chance games into a completely new game. Students become inventors and creators of the rules and name of the game. What student wouldn't want to get the chance to make their own game? How cool! Another assessment, besides the finished designed board game product, is to have students play the game and video/record their intentions of the game. It also allows students to understand and break the limitations of the game genre.
Creating with Social Media: Volley
Students collaborate and exchange ideas back and forth and build upon the work of another through visual and verbal metaphors. Some ideas for this are: visual verse, blimage, vizvo volley, hashtaggerie and headline riff. A student shares something and another student responds or exchanges with it in a different medium such as an image, poem/prose, audio, blogpost or hashtag. In this way, students are exchanging or sharing content knowledge. This "volley" can be between a team or group of students, say classes, or just between two individuals.
I've seen this used a lot in English classrooms. It gives the students a chance not just to read poetry, but to be poets themselves. In black poetry they highlight the words that mean a lot to them and cross out other words and phrases. In this sense, the student shows they know the deeper meaning/theme of the poem or their new composition and interpretation of it. I could use this in a unit on poetry or to better understand an article or text. It's important that teachers do what Burvall suggests: "Ask students to document the INTENTION behind their blackout poems by writing or recording their explanations" (147). This isn't just a piece of cool art to give to students without content. What students blackout shows their overall understanding of the theme and meaning. This activity asks students to construct, rearrange, juxtapose ideas, uncover hidden meanings and establish new relationships in the text.
Erasure poems are another option, they are a spin-off of black poetry!
Creating with Images: ImagED
Students find images to explain and show their understanding of a concept. The images must convey the essence of the concept. The three activities are Icon Challenge, Five-Card Flickr, and Two Images, One Question.The whole point is to synthesize complex ideas into simple but poignant images, like Burvall says, and thus students show understanding of content.
Icon Challenge: Students find or design icons, that stand as symbols to represent an idea or concept. They learn the important nature of icons as a means of communication. A series of icons can tell a sequential story, just like the EMOJI story activity.
Again, it is important that teachers have "students explain their intention--why they chose those particular aspects of the subject to translate into icons and why they designed the icons as they did," as Burvall suggests (170).
I really like the idea of creating a library catalogue of "four-icon novels" and displaying the posters around the class or school.
Five-Card Flickr
In a nutshell, students can use this activity to help them create a story from the images, or to use images to convey a story or match the content of a story, poem, text, speech or concept.
Students really have to think deeply and know the content to match it with images.
I really like the "Three of Me" activity that Burvall described on page 174.
Two Images, One Question
I can do this with my students when they are working on oral presentations and research topics. The images and question act as essential prompts to the research. The students will have to think metaphorically and critically about the images they select. Burvall says, "The images students find should serve as prompts for their presentation of the information (172)". Then students come up with an "original" question or discussion prompt for the third slide.
Creating with Sounds: Playlist a Life
This time, instead of using pictures or icons to demonstrate a concept or story, students use music to demonstrate the life or times of a subject. They make a playlist, choosing songs because of their lyrics, tone or themes that go along with the subject. They find songs that represent significant moments in the story or about the person. Consider having students make a playlist for a book like The Great Gatsby. Have them write a couple of sentences on why they chose each song. Scaffold student learning by having them do their own autobiographical playlist first. This representing things through a musical lens, would appeal to a lot of kids!
Creating with the Body: Dallowinian Party
Burvall described this activity: "Demonstrate the personality traits and mindsets, relationships, and dynamics of a group of individuals or characters by staging an improvised, role-play dinner party. During periodic breaks in the action, use first-person, in-character, stream-of-consciousness journaling to explore the attendees' thoughts and feelings" (217). It also says, "Dallowinian Party requires students to apply their knowledge of characters and personalities to an interactive and original context" (219). The teacher should be a facilitator of the overall interaction and conversation.
I think this activity would be very useful to help my students understand character personalities and motivations by taking on the role of the character or acting as them. How fun! I could definitely see this activity working for some of the books we read in class. The students will need to understand the character very well in order to play their role and behaviors. This activity also encourages student WRITING with their stream-of-consciousness reflections, killing two birds with one stone. The debriefing at the end allows them to reflect as well on the whole experience. In order for this "party" to not get out of hand, the students should know it is a graded oral presentation or performance. The teacher or a student can serve as the host of all the guests at the dinner! All the guests should have a relationship to the host.
The pre-activities are very important as well, like building a family tree to show how the guests are connected or know one another, as well as the list/bowl of "interruptions". I also love how students can dress up as the characters for this! They will really enjoy that part. And they can have food...sounds like something every kid will like. I would do this activity as an assessment but also as a sort of reward for getting through a unit or difficult book. What if one or two students don't know the character they are role-playing? How do I keep all my students accountable to know their character so they won't interfere with transmitting the content and understanding to other students? I don't want this to get out of control. Overall, I love the interactivity of this!
Creating with Stuff: Board Game Remix
Have students create a board game with objectives, rules, game pieces and game play based on the context of a story like say, Beowulf or Homer's Odyssey or Iliad. I think this would work best with a story with a lot of action and plot, or the hero's journey. By creating a board game, students demonstrate their understanding of a given plot line, process or journey, and things such as conflict, climax, resolution. The game design must represent the key information and concepts of the book.
However, there are other game options besides just making a typical board game, such as remixing and mashing up games such as word games, strategy games, and chance games into a completely new game. Students become inventors and creators of the rules and name of the game. What student wouldn't want to get the chance to make their own game? How cool! Another assessment, besides the finished designed board game product, is to have students play the game and video/record their intentions of the game. It also allows students to understand and break the limitations of the game genre.
Creating with Social Media: Volley
Students collaborate and exchange ideas back and forth and build upon the work of another through visual and verbal metaphors. Some ideas for this are: visual verse, blimage, vizvo volley, hashtaggerie and headline riff. A student shares something and another student responds or exchanges with it in a different medium such as an image, poem/prose, audio, blogpost or hashtag. In this way, students are exchanging or sharing content knowledge. This "volley" can be between a team or group of students, say classes, or just between two individuals.
Saturday, February 17, 2018
Textual Poaching: An Identity Remix
The media representations I chose to reflect on my culture were
paintings or the visual arts. The history of paintings goes way back in time.
Paintings have been an important artistic medium spanning cultures, continents
and time, and the nature of this art has been constantly changing—from
religious, classical paintings to more abstract and conceptual paintings. Paintings
have an inspiring, beautiful way of communicating messages, strong feelings and
emotions in people. I also think that words and quotes have the same effect on
people of communicating a powerful message and producing strong emotions and
feelings. For my remix, I decided it would be cool to try to combine painting
with modern day quotes. How powerful would it be to combine two very inspiring,
meaningful art forms in one representation? Paintings have not been traditionally
and historically represented with words. Most paintings don’t include words, only
the artist’s name at the bottom. Paintings rely more on colors, images and
figures instead of words to communicate a message. In comparison, quotes rely more
on the power of words, not images, to communicate a feeling or message.
I got the idea for my remix from the collage of quotes on my
Pinterest boards and thinking of how much these quotes mean to me. I pin way
too many quotes on Pinterest because quotes give me hope and inspiration. A
quote, just like a song lyric, can communicate the way I feel and my deepest
thoughts in a way that I’ve never been able to put into words. I believe that the
artistic medium of quotes has become very popular in social media, speeches,
print text and other contexts in our contemporary society, and correct me if I’m
wrong, but I think that quote pictures/blocks are a fairly new artistic medium.
I liked the idea of remixing the old historical painting with the new
contemporary quote block/picture. I drew on the paintings of Leonid Afremov and
Vincent van Gogh’s “Café Terrace at Night” because their paintings seemed to mimic
the same feelings and messages expressed from the quotes. The paintings of
Leonid Alfremov, with all the colors and contrasts and figures, especially stirred
up similar emotions and expressions of liveliness that I felt while reading the
quotes on my Pinterest board. The painting and quote seemed to connect in a meaningful
way.
I used Adobe photoshop to recontextualize the paintings with
the quotes, to enmesh and ingrain the quotes into the visual arts. I had to
take the block quotes from Pinterest and insert them as a layer into the painting.
I used many photoshop tools to do this. I wanted the quotes to look like they
were a part of the painting, to really be enmeshed in the texture, colors and layers
of it. I wanted it to feel like the quotes and painting were a part of each
other—that together they had shared meaning and power. This remix meant a lot to
me because visual images and words make me feel deeply and can stir up emotions.
I’m excited to see what overall effect it has on my classmates.
I like this idea of remixing or recontextualizing historical
texts—re-envisioning and responding to them in new ways. We respond to the old
and recontextualize it in our contemporary world, thus forming a new text with
new meaning and significance. I think it’s
important that we realize most artists and people “do not always create new
objects and forms but RESPOND TO PAST and PRESENT conversations” (Barney 145).
Hence, we don’t live in a vacuum. We are constantly responding to each other's work, to the things
around us, the things in our history, culture and identity, and inserting
ourselves into the conversation. We re-invent and play with the old. We do this
through adding, cutting, reassembling, manipulating, mashing, expanding,
revising, de-centering and covering. Who knew there were so many ways to remix?
When students get the chance to experiment and remix an old form, they see how everything
is interrelated and intertextual. The main take-away I got from this project
and lesson, is to give my students opportunities to respond to old forms in new
ways, which Barney calls conceptual and historical responding literacies.
https://www.google.com/search?q=leonid+afremov&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=KDEQowTpk1GuKM%253A%252CU8kYr9y9N6WhfM%252C_&usg=__-BlC1LucW3UwmSj63xSBWNbjQrU%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-zqmt767ZAhVFAqwKHTo9AZEQ_h0IgAIwGQ#imgrc=_
https://www.pinterest.com/shelbkristine/remix/
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Wonder Woman Remix
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Process Piece
I'm not going to lie, I wasn't in class on Wednesday and this assignment kind of threw me for a loop. The prompt especially left me wondering what exactly was an artistic "process" I could do in relation to the Barney reading. It said to document some type of process, which is an act of human labor with a beginning, middle and an end. But how did a process of human labor connect with the Barney reading? I never thought of a process of human labor as connected to artistic creation. However, I'll come back to how I started to think of this assignment metaphorically and in broader terms.
Processes is an ambiguous term and can mean so many things when it comes to artistic creation, but the prompt gave me somewhat of a direction with the process relating to "human labor". Immediately, just like many of my classmates (I read their blogs) I thought of showing the process of getting ready for school or possibly baking cookies. These were acts of human labor in which I could show their processes. But I was also thinking efficiently and thought, "Why not show the process of cleaning my room and cross off two things on my to-do-list?" I made a video of me cleaning my room and all the processes that go along with that like making my bed, organizing my desk, folding my clothes, and vaccumming the floors. I took the idea of a silent video form very literally and paid homage to the silent films (Charlie Chaplin) of the early 20th century.
Now, as far as how this assigment relates to the reading I thought of how going through processes in life like cleaning my room are a lot like going through processes in art. When cleaning my room I'm going through the process of moving, organizing, transforming and creating a product of a clean room. In the process I'm thinking of how I want my room to look and be represented. Paraphrasing the young boy's comment in the reading:
It's not just like I snap my fingers and my room is suddenly immaculate. I don't just clean my room right away; it was kind of a long process to get to the finished product.
Going through the process of creating is what helps us gain experience and make meaning for ourselves. In this class I haven't just read ABOUT art (like Barney discourages teachers from having their students do), but have wrote about art texts through actively creating and engaging with them. Barney says,"Reading print texts about artistic practice is not the same as engaging in authentic artistic practices." Just like learning the practice or process of cleaning my room, there are artistic practices and processes of inquiry to be learned by students about the arts. I see this activity as a metaphor to what we should be teaching our students about "art as a process", just like Mr. Baker did with his class in showing them the artistic processes and inquiry that jewelry artist Jan Yager went through. She went on an artistic investigation asking questions, exploring, collecting, gathering information, researching, looking at old artifacts to get ideas, drawing and photographing plants and delimiting her investigation in order to create her jewelry and finished product. That is what I want to help students understand--that creating art is a process. Or like Barney says, "To create in the visual arts means to engage actively with visual arts research methodologies--the disciplinary methods and philosophies surround the selection and use of methods, materials, processes, and contexts." I want them to come to terms with what artistic investigation is and how and why artists engage in artistic inquiry. Just like Mr. Baker I can help students experience and understand the processes artists use in their creations. I'm still not sure exactly how I could implement this in my English classroom, but the idea sounds nice and I'm looking forward to our classroom discussion on it.
2 Quotes that really stuck out to me from the Barney reading:
- To create in the visual arts then is to “write” visual arts texts. To be able to do this requires more knowledge than simply reading or interpreting print texts about visual art, although this is often an important aspect of being able to participate in visual art as a community of practice. More importantly, to write a visual arts texts, one must have experiential understanding about how visual arts texts are created in context.
- The literacy focus in a visual arts course should not be solely about the ability to read or even interpret what is written about art but to begin to contextualize and engage with art as a complex disciplinary practice, along with its discourses, methodologies, and interpretive frames for meaning making
Sunday, February 4, 2018
Medium Specificity: Photography
https://www.instagram.com/katiehogganphotography/
I want to give credit to the person that helped me with these photographs: Katie Hoggan
I want to give credit to the person that helped me with these photographs: Katie Hoggan
Artist/Teacher Statement:
The digital media form I chose to
fully explore was photography. I’ve always been interested in learning more
about photography since I think it is such a cool medium, and it worked out
perfectly because my roommate is a photographer. This weekend I was able to go do
a photoshoot with her to fully explore this medium as she tutored me through the
camera workings and software editing. She had a project to do for school as
well, and while she took most of the pictures of our subject, she helped me use her camera and take some of my own. Photography offers a lot of affordances as
a digital medium. More so than other digital mediums, photography is able to capture
a moment in time. It is able to express and capture a portrait of a person,
subject, or scene so intensely and so beautifully. That is what I loved about
photography and wanted to explore myself. You see photographer’s pictures or
photography online and it celebrates those moments and elements of life. Also, one
of the biggest affordances of photography as a digital medium is how much you
can edit the photographs! My friend Katie taught me just how much photographers
put into the composing and editing of their photos. I wasn’t aware of how photographers
can change the exposure on their cameras with ISO, shutter speed and F Stop and
how many settings there are on a camera (at least nice cameras). Not only is
there a lot that photographers edit while composing and taking the pictures,
but there is a lot of editing software to use after. I don’t think audiences
are always aware of the editing of the original photograph. I used photoshop and editing
techniques such as clone stamp, dodging and burning to edit/manipulate my photos to the
way I wanted them.
Some of the limitations of photography are that in only
capturing a single image, pose, movement or overall moment, photographers have
to try to fit everything they want to communicate and include in one picture.
Photography can tell a story and show movement just like film can, but it is
more limited by its form. Photographers must be smart and thoughtful in the
composing and editing of the photographs, in order to completely capture
everything they want to in the photograph. This is why photographers take so
many pictures on photoshoots—to get the right ones. We ended up taking about
400 pictures! Another limitation of photography is that if you want high
quality photos you need a good digital camera/software and the knowledge to use
it. I gained a lot of respect for my roommate Katie and this profession/artistry
in general, because of the expertise and money it takes to do photography.
There is a lot more to learn and know about photography than I ever gave it
credit. You can’t just pick up a camera and take pictures and know how to use
it (well maybe with a cheap camera or iphone). There are a lot of settings
and equipment on a nice camera that photographers know how to use/adjust. Now
I realize how much my roommate had to study and learn at school to be a
photographer and take good pictures. You have to get the settings of exposure
and lighting just right and coordinate the numbers on ISO, shutter speed, and F
stop right where you want them before taking the picture. You also have to know
how to compose the picture, how you are going to set up your frame and where
you are going to place your subject. You want to make sure the person you are
photographing feels comfortable and looks genuine, because if they look posed
or stiff it looks awkward no matter what they’re doing. Katie says, "With composing
its learning to give the least amount of direction to the person but still have
them look good, because the more direction you give them the more tense they
get unless they are more experienced and not self-conscious in front of the camera,
which is not the case for very many people." Luckily, the girl we shot had a lot
of experience with photo shoots before, and she knew dance/ballet so she was
very comfortable in front of the camera. I still don’t know half of all there
is to learn about camera settings, composing and the editing software but it was so interesting.
From this project and Thevenin’s “Responding” essay, I’ve learned that as a teacher I can aid my students in responding to and within particular digital mediums by going through the processes of responding through class discussion, creative production and self-reflection. I will aid them by stressing inquiry, because we all start by having questions about a medium, like I did with photography. Class discussion should revolve around questions and analysis of a medium. Then students find a “source of inspiration” that they are interested in to do a creative project on. I want my students to be able to analyze the affordances and limitations of the medium they chose to see it’s unique characteristics. If affords some things like photography did with editing and capturing a moment in time, but also limits some things like with movement/motion and sound. Then the class and the individual can reflect on ALL the different art mediums and their unique characteristics for use. The main take-away I got from my individual exploration is that just like Katie tutored me in an art she was skilled at, students can also tutor each other in certain mediums and in an art they are good at. I never would have explored professional photography to this capacity and been able to produce these photographs this quickly/easily without a tutor. She bridged that gap and made it accessible. She made me appreciate her art that she was so passionate about. Even though she helped me the whole time, I still got opportunities to make my own artistic choices along the way with editing. I think students can do this tutor/learner thing too. Having students tutor each other in digital media is a very great idea and possibility in my classroom. I also want to teach my students to appreciate professional artwork and see how much goes into these artist mediums in comparison to other qualities of art. There are different qualities of art. If they have opportunities to learn from professional artists and tutors they can see this.
From this project and Thevenin’s “Responding” essay, I’ve learned that as a teacher I can aid my students in responding to and within particular digital mediums by going through the processes of responding through class discussion, creative production and self-reflection. I will aid them by stressing inquiry, because we all start by having questions about a medium, like I did with photography. Class discussion should revolve around questions and analysis of a medium. Then students find a “source of inspiration” that they are interested in to do a creative project on. I want my students to be able to analyze the affordances and limitations of the medium they chose to see it’s unique characteristics. If affords some things like photography did with editing and capturing a moment in time, but also limits some things like with movement/motion and sound. Then the class and the individual can reflect on ALL the different art mediums and their unique characteristics for use. The main take-away I got from my individual exploration is that just like Katie tutored me in an art she was skilled at, students can also tutor each other in certain mediums and in an art they are good at. I never would have explored professional photography to this capacity and been able to produce these photographs this quickly/easily without a tutor. She bridged that gap and made it accessible. She made me appreciate her art that she was so passionate about. Even though she helped me the whole time, I still got opportunities to make my own artistic choices along the way with editing. I think students can do this tutor/learner thing too. Having students tutor each other in digital media is a very great idea and possibility in my classroom. I also want to teach my students to appreciate professional artwork and see how much goes into these artist mediums in comparison to other qualities of art. There are different qualities of art. If they have opportunities to learn from professional artists and tutors they can see this.
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