7th Grade Graffiti Overview

So here is the unit I plan to start with in Art 7, once we've finished our pre-assessments, of course.  Last year, these students, as 6th graders, asked to do a graffiti unit, but we ran out of time.  When I met with the upcoming 7th graders at the end of the school year, I asked for input on what they wanted to learn about in Art 7, and the first thing that topped their list was graffiti.  I've talked a bit about this graffiti unit in previous posts very briefly; mostly about how I knew very little about this art style and movement!

I've utilized this book by Scape Martinez to build the unit.  I ordered it from Dick Blick.  It has a nice, brief overview of the history of American Graff writing, or graffiti, and has really great directions and pictures of how to create your own individual tag.  I ordered the Graff Color Workbook as well, which contains a lot of the same information, but also has some great drawing and design prompts, which I will probably use during the school year for sub plans and bell ringers.  I've gotten a lot of information  and ideas from the book alone that I haven't really dived into the workbook that much yet!

Unit Introduction:

As with any unit plan, Marzano believes that you should always have a good introduction to the unit and I second that!  The introduction is used as a way to introduce a new topic to students, as well as find out what they may already know about that topic.  An introduction lesson does not have to be a full class period...in college we were encouraged to make the introduction lesson 15-20 minutes in length.

For my intro. to graffiti, we will begin with a discussion about graffiti as art versus vandalism.  It will be interesting to see how this discussion goes, especially since I live in a very rural area where a majority of the graffiti that is seen is on the side of the trains!  This discussion will also give us a chance to talk a bit about how to participate in graffiti legally!  I'll round out the end of the class with some YouTube videos about graffiti and an appropriate exit slip question.

Lesson 1:  History of Graffiti

It only seems fitting that for the first lesson of this graffiti unit, students learn about the history of graffiti.  This would be part of what Marzano calls the "acquiring and integrating" aspect of a unit.  Students will learn about some famous graffiti artists, including Taki 183 (who is credited with starting the tag idea), Keith Haring (who combined his graphics art training with subway art), Bansky (who is an anonymous contemporary graffiti artist), and Scape Martinez (the author of the Graff books).  Easy way to incorporate the Common Core ELA Shifts when students are asked to read brief news articles and biographies about each artist.

 Lesson 2: What is a tag?

The second unit will involve learning about the importance of a tag in graffiti.  Graffiti art revolves all around an artist's tag.  This acquiring and integrating lesson will be less about note-taking and more about brainstorming individual tag ideas.  The following is included in the student's note packet and is a summary of information taken directly from the Graff book:

When choosing a tag, think of the following:

1.      How does it sound?

a.       What does it make you think of?

b.       REVOK vs. SLICK

2.      How does it look when it’s written?

a.       How do the letters look when written together?

b.       Is there rhythm to the way your letters look?

3.      Length

a.       Don’t make your name too big

b.       Short and to the point

c.       Ideally, no more than 6 letters

4.      What does your name mean?

a.       Sometimes it doesn’t mean anything, just sounds cool

b.       Some names stand for a hidden meaning

5.      Numbers?

a.       Early artist’s incorporated numbers, which stood for the street number they lived on…i.e. 125^th street in NYC = SCAPE 125

b.       Numbers can be used for purely a design element…i.e. MODE 2

6.      Some other tips:

a.       Double A’s and E’s promote balance

b.       Q, X and Z are letters that are often difficult to work with

c.       Be creative with spelling

                                                               i.      Interchangeable letters (C and K)

                                                             ii.      ESCAPE became SKAPE, which was finalized to SCAPE

Here's where a homework assignment comes into play.  Students will need to brainstorm tag names for themselves.  I expect at least five ideas.  The bell ringer for the next class will be to get into groups and discuss each other's ideas.

  Lesson 3: Elements and Principles of Graffiti?

The final acquiring and integrating lesson will talk about the design aspects of graffiti.  We will review the elements and principles, as well as the more specific graffiti design vocabulary mentioned in the Graff book.  According to Martinez, tags can be broken up into four elements: letter text, arrows, flourishes and symbols.  We will review what each of these elements are and students will have to draw a picture in their notes for reference.

This is also where we will get into the different styles of graffiti: Bubble letters, block letters, semi-wildstyle, wildstyle and 3-D wildstyle.  Again, I'll ask students to write down a definition and draw their tag using each style in their notes.

The final aspect of any good unit, according to Marzano, is the extending and refining portion.  This is where students should take what they have learned, apply it and "refine" their understanding of the information through its use.  All along in this unit, students will be asked to complete homework assignments in their sketchbook to design their tag.  The extending and refining portion will happen when they have to make their final tag design on the cover of their sketchbook (rubric for this is still in the works).  They will also have to take a final assessment in the form of a quiz, where they will be expected to recall vocabulary definitions and draw examples for certain vocab words.

I know there's A LOT of information in this post that doesn't necessarily relate to art and graffiti (ahem, Marzano?). I feel like I am very lucky that my school chose Marzano over the Danielson Framework for our APPR because in my art education courses at St. Lawrence University, the textbook of choice was Marzano's A Different Kind of Classroom, so I have a bit of a heads up on this whole Marzano thing compared to other teachers in my district.  I am not very familiar with the Danielson Framework, but hopefully there is a cross-over in some of this information that can be found useful for those who have to use Danielson!

Another Common Core Art Project: Polar Bears

Since I seem to get more hits on my blog when I post stuff about incorporating Common Core, I figured I'd share a unit that I did last year when we had to start incorporating the ELA shifts.  For those of you who don't know what the shifts are, here they be!  These come straight from the Engage NY website.  Basically, the idea is that if everyone starts using these shifts, we will be more aligned with how we are teaching the students and getting them to be more college ready.


Shift 1 Balancing Informational &  Literary Text
Students read a true balance of informational and literary texts. 

Shift 2 Knowledge in the Disciplines 
Students build knowledge about the world (domains/ content areas) through TEXT rather than the teacher or activities

Shift 3 Staircase of Complexity 
Students read the central, grade appropriate text around which instruction is centered.  Teachers are patient, create more time and space and support in the curriculum for close reading.

Shift 4 Text-based Answers 
Students engage in rich and rigorous evidence based conversations about text.  

Shift 5 Writing from Sources 
Writing emphasizes use of evidence from sources to inform or make an argument. 

Shift 6 Academic Vocabulary 
Students constantly build the transferable vocabulary they need to access grade level complex texts.  This can be done effectively by spiraling like content in increasingly complex texts.

So, here is the project I did in relation to the ELA shifts.  I did this with 4th grade, but it could definitely be done with other grades and altered in many ways to fit what you might want to do.

I did this project during winter, thus the polar bear theme.  Here's how it went:

Day 1:  I showed students a power point presentation about polar bears.  We talked about where they live, what they look like, and why they are endangered.  I also showed them advertisements from Coca-Cola that incorporated polar bears.  We looked at the body of a polar bear and figured out how to draw one using shapes.  For the remainder of class, students practiced this.

Day 2:  On the second day, I gave students the parameters for this project.  They had to draw at least one polar bear in an appropriate environment based on what they had learned about polar bears.  Students spent the entire period sketching these out.  If they finished and I approved of their drawing, I let them take a white oil pastel to start tracing over their pencil lines.

Day 3-5:  For the next few class periods, I demonstrated how to blend oil pastels to create value, texture and definition between the white polar bears and the snowy background.  I didn't want students to just outline everything in black, like a coloring book, so we ended up using a lot of white and blue pastels.

Day 6-7:  Finally, here comes the Common Core part.  I passed out an article on polar bears that was grade level appropriate (shift 1).  Now, I find it hard to get articles on a certain subject area if it isn't already in a Scholastic art magazine.  I spent a night doing searches on polar bear facts that were written for elementary age students.  For the last part of this project, I asked students to write a 5-6 sentence paragraph about their artwork while relating back to the article they read (shift 4 & 5).  I wanted students to be able to back up the reason why they drew their polar bears the way they did.  I had students neatly cut out their paragraph and glue it and their drawing to black construction paper to display in the hallway.

"Polar bears live in the Arctic so I drew my polar bear with glaciers in the background.  I drew a mom polar bear walking home to her cubs with a little present.  I drew a present because it is almost Christmas.  That is why I drew my polar bear.  I drew my polar bear white because polar bear fur is really transparent but their fur reflects off the snow."

"Polar bears live near the north pole in the Arctic Circle so I drew a polar bear at the north pole.  They are found in coastal parts of Alaska, Canada, Russia, Norway and Greenland also.  Polar bears are good swimmers.  Polar bears are the largest bears on earth.  Polar bears hunt seals, fish, reindeer and seabirds."

"Polar bears live in the Arctic so I drew mine on ice.  The polar bears home is melting so I drew the ice with cracks in it.  Polar bears have sharp noses so I drew it smelling for food for its baby."

"Do you know three facts about polar bears?  First fact, I drew a scarf on my polar bear to show it stays warm.  Polar bears also stay warm because of their fur.  Second, I colored my polar ear white and black because they need to blend in with their habitat.  Third, they are the largest bear in the world."

"My polar bears are in the Arctic, that is why I put them in the snow.  The polar bears fur is actually transparent and they look white because they reflect the white color of the ice; that is why my polar bears are white.  Polar bears like to swim so that is why they're by the water.  My polar bears are with their mom because the dad doesn't stay with the babies."

Now, I know none of these are stupendous paragraphs or anything, but it's still art class and I do believe there is only so much reading and writing you can do in art before you bog students down and make them dread coming to class with you!  They have to do enough reading and writing outside of art that you don't want to overwhelm them.  I feel by doing this project in this way, I was still having them write about THEIR artwork and not as much about the facts.  You can see the rest of the polar bear drawings and paragraphs on Artsonia.  I also have my polar bear article and unit plan on The smARTteacher website.