Saturday Art School: Clay Creatures

This week the 5^th and 6^th grade group created clay imaginary creatures. The lesson required them to develop a concept for their creature via preliminary sketch in their sketchbooks, view and participate in PowerPoint discussion and demonstration, create a pinch pot, and using tools provided and the score and slip method, attach features to transform the pinch pot into a creature.

When creating the lesson plan, I assumed many of the students may have already completed a similar lesson in school. Keeping that in mind, I chose to include elements that connected the activity to the real world. We did this by discussing Tim Burton’s use of model making to create characters used in his stories and film and introducing ceramist Eva Funderburgh who creates and sells ceramic creatures. The images chosen to speak of these individuals included scenes of each artist, sitting in their studio creating a clay creature. Both scenes had preliminary sketches of the creatures being made hanging in the background. I used that to point out the relevance of the sketchbook activities they participate in each morning when they arrive. Several students recognized Tim Burton and were able to identify and talk to each other about the characters he had created. Eva, not so much but we introduced them to someone new.

 

              Another element I hoped to add more of this week was allowing the students to participate in instruction. I had a student join me at the front of the class when demonstrating how to make a pinch pot. We both made pots to review the process. It was a short bit of the demonstration, but something about it really sparked my interest in involving that sort of interactivity a lot more in my instruction methods. In our reading this week, Thompson discussed the writings of Russian psychologist L.S. Vygotsky which support ideas that children develop and learn best via interplay of personal initiatives combined with intersubjective experiences (Thompson 132). I think this observation of childhood learning definitely applies to our class’ age group. They are very socially conscious little kids. Not all of them pose an extrovert personality, but they all seem to be very influenced by what others in their class are doing, perhaps more so than what Jinyi, Cassidy, or I are doing. So why not let them help teach? Last year in my Z531 methods class a different pair of students would present discussion on the readings each week. We taught each other to the best of our ability and the instructor filled in any gaps by generating key discussions not touched on by the student presentations. After reading the Vygotsky bit in Thompson’s article, I realize now how much that process in Z531 fostered my understanding of the material and of teaching. “What the child can do in cooperation today, he can do alone tomorrow” is a quote from Vygotsky shared by the author that basically defines the process (Thompson 132). A student (of any age, in my opinion) can master their own understanding of the material by sharing it and instructing others.  This has really made a connection with me.

Regarding our reading by Eubanks, we have at least two children in our class who speak a language other than English. I have not observed that any student in our class is having difficulty understanding the teachers. I have observed them using the other language when discussing the day’s activity or their completed product with their parent. If a language barrier did create a problem in my classroom, I really like the suggestions Eubanks makes to learn some simple phrases and learn basics about their culture (Eubanks 42-43). I believe having common knowledge always helps the relationship between teacher and student.