Art Elective: Zentangle Unit

So I decided to start out my first unit with my art elective as Zentangles.  Originally I had planned to incorporate the zentangles with the graffiti unit for 7th graders, but as I dove into planning that unit, I realized I already had a lot of content to cover with the graffiti techniques and styles.  I gave the art elective students (10th and 11th graders) a survey to fill out on the first day, and unfortunately the students really did not give me much to go off of.  I received a lot of requests for photography (which is not my strong suit, especially film photography), so I'm going to stay away from that request just a little bit until I get my three computers in my classroom to do digital photography.

I think the zentangles are a great way to start out because (1) it's nearly impossible to mess them up and they can be confidence boosters and (2) it's a good way for me to assess what these students already know about the elements and principles.  At first, they seemed a little hesitant and not enthused by the idea of zentangles...but after their sketchbook assignment over the weekend, I think the ladies in the class really got into them!  Right now we are three days into the zentangle unit and here is what we have done so far.

The first thing I did was make a packet with some vocabulary and all of the information students would need about zentangles.  Unfortunately, I did not write down my sources (eek, bad teacher!) but if you're interested in seeing the packet, feel free to let me know and I can send it to you and the original documents I saved (some of the documents have links to websites and such).  I picked and pulled my packet pieces from three different sources.  (Vocabulary included the elements and principles, shading vocabulary and the zentangle vocab, including the four steps to zentangle: (1) Draw a border, (2) Draw the string, (3) Fill with patterns, (4) Add value).

For the first "mini project", we created a zentangle tile.

The first one here is mine, and the group picture are the tiles made by the seven students in the class.

Following the zentangle tiles, I assigned the students the following sketchbook assignment last Friday:  Draw a contour drawing of an unusual object and fill it with zentangles.  This one is mine (it's my goal to always try and do any sketch assignment I assign any class...it's been so long since I've done drawing just for myself, I figure this is a good way to get back into it!):

And even though I only asked them to do one drawing, a few of the girls got into and did multiple drawings.  This student didn't quite understand the contour part of the assignment, but she experimented a lot with color.

The top two are done by two different students...I love the lamp one!  I'd say she was one of the more creative ones when it came to picking an unusual object to draw.  The bottom two were done by the same student.

These four were done by the same student.  She REALLY got into the zentangles...and did a really nice job!  Everyone thought her apple was the best one during critique.

So, our first zentangle project is to design an alphabet.   This is the handout students received for the project.  They must choose 9 consecutive alphabet letters.  Some decided to free-hand their letters and other printed off their favorite font to use.  I allowed them to use the light box to trace the letters onto the heavy vellum paper we are using.

These are my starting letters...(Ravie is my favorite font!)

And to my surprise, one of the students took her letters home and FINISHED them all!!!  Love it!

 We are going to mat these professional.  Since one student was finished, I was going to help her mat them, but when I pulled out the mat cutter that was in the high school room, I discovered it was horribly sliced up and beat up!  Luckily for me, I bought a brand new mat board cutter last year for the elementary room using the extended day grant money, so I sent to girls down to the other room and the finished student helped me put it together.  Next class I anticipate that we will be ready to mat a bunch of these...the ladies seemed eager to get them done at home!

For the final project in the zentangle unit, I want students to bring in a random object.  We'll prime it with gesso and zentangle it.  Well, I was thinking of having them bring in an object or I might bring in bowling pins for each one to zentangle, as I have 10 boxes of 10 pins in my garage at home!  Having them bring in an object would be pretty cool to do...but I think the bowling pins would look awesome zentangled too!

What's your thoughts?

First Full Week: Elementary

Wow, so after the first two days and this first full week, I have finally seen every elementary student once!  Today was day 1 in the cycle, so the rotation started again and I saw a few classes for a second time.  I think I'm really going to struggle with getting students to work a bit faster.  I hate rushing them, but we aren't going to have time to do very many art projects this year with the elementary schedule!  I'm always talking about taking their time and having good craftsmanship, but I was trying to push them along today so we could begin the first unit!  (Problem is, they're very chatty right now, so they aren't actually working like they should be.  I know that's why they take so long to finish projects, but they don't know that...they just get confused because Mrs. Impey tells them to take their time but then tells them to hurry up!)  That is going to be my big struggle with elementary this year, I just know it!

Anyways, here are two of my three bulletin boards.  Between faculty meetings, doctor appointments and one-on-one meetings, I'm ashamed to say I still have a blank bulletin board!  Eek!  Oh well, I think I'm entitled to be a bit behind since I now I have three bulletin boards and 2, sometimes 3 display cases that I'm responsible for!

Here is my almost-finished "Art Is..."/"Art Isn't..." bulletin board.  We finished the post-it part in every class, but didn't finish the other illustration part.  I'll be able to fill the rest of the empty spots this week as I see the classes for the second time.  I did this as an opening project with the 4th-6th graders, and the 3rd-6th 12:1:1 class.

This group of 6th graders had the color theory curriculum last year.  I was impressed by the "Art is Cool" one, where the student remembered the cool colors (especially since that student is color blind too!).

And here is the Van Gogh's Vase board.  These classes all finished their flowers...2nd and 3rd graders, plus the K-3 12:1:1 class did these.  I just need to make a sign to hang telling viewers who did the flowers.  (I plan to get my 3rd bulletin board up on Monday...the K-1st graders did Kandinsky circles.  1st graders did cut construction paper and the kinders just did colored crayon circles.  I had to take more time going over the rules with the kinders so I didn't want to change scissors and glue just yet!)

I was particularly impressed by this student...he is in the 12:1:1 class and in the past, has not been very good at concentrating on coloring in the lines.  He spent the entire time working and concentrating so hard on coloring his flower!  This is the best coloring job I've seen him do, and it was only the first week of school!

So, now that I'm finally seeing the kids for their second art class, we're starting to get into our first units for some, and pre-assessments for others.  My kindergarten students will be serving as my LLO this year.  I had a 97% passing rate on my post-assessment with the cutting & gluing exercise, so I want (and my administrator wants) to beef up the assessment a bit, because it is probably a little easy.  So, I've decided to add a simple drawing component and some kinder-color theory.  Since we do primary and secondary colors in kindergarten, that's probably something safe to assess their memories on.  I also do a lot of basic drawings of things like the cows and such using basic shapes...so shape recognition and drawing skills can be assessed at the end of the year as well.

New shape sheet has 7 shapes and one line to cut out instead of 9 shapes and two lines.  The two lines confused the students last year a bit, I think.

This will assess the secondary colors (and if I wanted to, at the end of the year I could assess their ability to read these color words and shape words as sight words).  Also, drawing a square, circle, triangle, rectangle and five different kinds of lines.

My 1st graders will also be making up the rest of my SLO portion with the two high school levels.  With them I cover 54% of my student population based on class level sizes and the amount of time I see them during the school year.  My 1st graders will be doing the 6-square drawing test again, but I'm going to be altering my original rubric.  The alteration is still in the process.  I had an OK success rate with that assessment.  The rubric was the main problem in grading those assessments.  I'm also changing what the students will be drawing.  Last year they had to draw a fuzzy dog, a rainbow, a flower, a tree, their family and anything they wanted.  Of course, the "anything they wanted" part for some was just scribbles.  So, this year, they will be drawing a fuzzy dog, a tree, a rainbow, a landscape, a still life and a self-portrait.  This was, some content vocabulary and recognition can be used as well.  More on that as I redevelop that rubric.

In 6th grade, we will be jumping into cave art.  Last year I didn't do a prehistoric unit with the six graders because by the time we got through pre-assessments and such, I missed the opportunity to match it.  That unit is a quick one in social studies.  So, this year I'm starting it right away with hopes of giving them so background knowledge on the subject to help in social studies.

5th grade will be jumping right into color theory.  I did a little of the color wheel with them last year, so we are starting off by making generic color wheel plates and I'll have them keep track of the color theories that they learn about on the back over the course of the year.  I had been hoping to get tertiary colors painted in the same class as well, but they took too much time (being "Chatty Kathys") finishing up their "Art Is..." illustrations.  We will finish these next class and then jump right into the complementary color checkerboards.  I decided to skip the painted color wheels where I have them make a symbol to represent themselves because that just took way too long last year to complete.

For 4th grade, we are jumping right into using value.  We will do the fall leaves linocut project and the fall tree with value drawing that I did last year.  That project is always a big hit with 4th graders.

Third grade?  Not quite sure what I'm doing with that group yet...but 2nd grade is currently doing the Common Core NYS listening and learning strand about fairy tales, so I'm sure I can come up with something there.  Hmmm...the thought that just came to me is that they just did Beauty and the Beast...maybe some stained glass castle windows?

Some more DDI...(text heavy post...and not so much about art :-/ )

I can honestly say that I can't wait for September to be over!  There is just SO much paperwork that needs to be done and turned in, too much thinking I have to do to plan ahead for DDI, SLOs, LLOs, etc. that I think my brain is already fried, and it's only Tuesday!!!  (Boy, I'm sure missing have day 6 off at the moment...this being a full time teacher is going to wear me out! ;) )

Monday I stayed for a faculty meeting about DDI, data driven instruction.  The presenter came from our local Boces and has been working with other districts to begin implementing DDI as well.  The information she presented does make sense.  The first year of implementation is going to be a little more work because of the need to build test banks and such, but the concept behind DDI makes sense.  I figured I would just share a bit in this post about what was presented and how I think I'll use it with my high school art classes.

Data driven instruction is built upon four steps.  The concept comes from Paul Bambrick-Santoyo and his book Driven by Data.

1.  Assessment:  Teachers should be using interim assessments (my district is requiring us to do a test at the 10, 20, 30 and 40 week period...the 40 week being the final exam, and also in my case, part of my post-assessment for my APPR) throughout the school year to see what students have a good understanding on and to see what they are retaining.  Using a ticket out the door (or exit slip) and bell ringers are also forms of assessment that should be used to see what students are understanding.

2.  Analysis:  The second step is to analyse the data from the tests.  Ideally, if you're in a large district, you'd have a team of teachers who teach the same subject area that you can sit down with, or, if you're like my district, my principal and I will be a "team" to analyse my data.  As you look at the data, you should be saying, "Why did 70% of the students choose this wrong answer over the correct answer?" Well, maybe it was a poorly worded question on the test, or maybe the concept needs to be retaught.  On the other hand, you would hope to find that 90% or more of students would be getting correct answers.  (This is where eDoctrina will come in handy that I have to use.  Even though it's a lot of work to input questions, the analysis portion becomes easier because the program will automatically calculate the percentage of student answers for each question.  It even creates a bar graph for those people who need it visually!)

The presenter gave another example of how teachers in another district who have already implemented DDI last year analyse the data.  After a test has been corrected, they assign the following as homework:  "Go home and for each answer you got wrong, please write down and tell me why you chose that answer over the correct one."  This would essentially help you understand how the students heard the information that you taught.

3.  Action:  The third step is to take action.  Meaning, what and when are you going to reteach, and how are you going to reteach it so that students grasp the knowledge better?  Basically, it means you might need to change your teaching strategy.  This step is often the hardest step, especially for those on a time constraint because of state testing.  I think this part is a lot easier for us special areas to do because we generally don't have a state curriculum we are mandated to follow.

4.  Culture:  The final step has to do with changing the culture of student learning.  Basically, under DDI, you "own" your lessons for the first 10 weeks of school.  After that 1st interim assessment, the students "own" your lessons and drive the teaching and learning process...they essentially take charge of their own learning.


So, here's the first question this brings up...isn't DDI suggesting that we "teach to the test", which is what everyone hates doing?  Not necessarily.  Those interim assessments aren't supposed to be held against the students.  But then how are we supposed to get the students to take them seriously and actually try on these tests?  That's up to the teacher.  Our district suggested taking the interim tests as a homework grade instead of a test grade so that they are still held accountable, but it isn't going to make or break their report card averages.

Next, how should we be building our assessments, especially if we have extremely high achievers and low achievers in the same class?  The presenter suggested building the assessment for the bulk of the students.  (Hmmm, easier said than done?)

How many questions should be on these interim assessments?  The presenter suggested that for every standard or sub-standard you have covered up until that point, you should have 3-5 questions per standard.  (In eDoctrina, when I input my questions for the question bank, I can also attach a standard/sub-standard to each question.  Again, when it's time to analyse my data, it will automatically tell me the percentage of students that are doing well/poorly on each standard.  I plan on inputting all my questions from each unit test I give so that I can randomly pick a few from each unit for each interim assessment.)

Coming from the CSE angle... how are we supposed to accommodate everyone who needs it? My district has A LOT of students who require services from an IEP or a 504 plan...extended time, test read out loud, etc.  On top of regular class tests, quizzes and assignments, this just adds that much more stress to those services.  According to the presenter, if the accommodations can happen at the summative, it should happen at the interim.  For example, in NY, a math exam for the 3rd-8th grade is allowed to be read out loud to those who have that requirement on their IEP, but certain sections on the ELA are not allowed to be read out loud.  (This is not necessarily going to be a good thing for many districts...especially districts like mine that can't afford to hire more support staff due to the lower scores by the new state tests under Common Core.  My district is going to try and entice students to stay after for AIS services after school.  This would ensure they get the extra support they need without filling up the school day even more.  Our teachers would be paid extra for staying after to work with the students, which is cheaper than hiring more full-time staff.  Only problem is...students aren't mandated to take AIS, so we have to make them want to stay after.)

Wow, so all that being said, DDI is looking good and bad to me right now.  To be honest, checking student understanding at various points using cumulative assessments seems like a no-brainer to me.  I did this last year with my 5th graders and my color theory curriculum.  Each rubric had review questions from all of the previous lessons and units, and each rubric, there were more and more, but they were able to answer just about all of the correctly by the end of the year!  (Thus the reason they did really well on their post-assessment!)  I remember tests from high school that had review questions/bonus questions on them from previous units...

DDI does stink though, because now I'm having to administer more tests in art.  I do think tests are important because I want to treat art, to an extent, like an academic subject so that students take it seriously and actually try to learn and maintain the information I teach them.  But holy tests galore!  I'll have to work on getting a little creative with these interim assessments so that they have some performance based aspect to them...but that might be too much for my plate this year, I'd want to give it serious thought!

I just want to leave you with one more thing.   (And I promise, after this post, I WILL be posting some artwork and such that is starting to be finished up at school!  I still have only seen about half of my elementary kids...!) The presenter gave us this handout to try and explain why DDI needs to be done (and it comes from Bambrick's book):

TEACHER:  Listen; this data-driven education thing seems interesting and all, but why are we doing it?

PRINCIPAL:  Do you watch basketball?

TEACHER:  Sure.

PRINCIPAL:  During a recent high school basketball playoff game, the scoreboard completely malfunctioned midway through the game.  So, the refs kept the score and time on the sidelines.  As it came close to the end of the game, the visiting team was down by two points, but they did not realize it nor how much time was left.  The clock ran out before they took the final shot.

TEACHER:  That's not right!

PRINCIPAL:  Of course not.  If the scoreboard had been working, the entire end of the game could have been different.  So you'd agree that a working scoreboard is critical for sport events, correct?

TEACHER:  Of course.

PRINCIPAL:  At the end of the day, data-drive instruction is like fixing the broken scoreboard.  Relying on state tests is like covering up the scoreboard at the beginning of the game and then uncovering it at the end of the game to see if you won.  At that point, there's nothing you can do to change the outcome!  We use interim assessments to keep the scoreboard uncovered, so we can make the necessary adjustments to be able to win the game.