Mr. J wanted to introduce his intermediate grade students to the myriad of artistic styles and genres in a way that would actively engage them and leverage a new set of tools that he found on the Web site of the National Gallery of Art. These tools allow students to create their own works of art in the style of many modern artists and experience the pleasure of communicating their own life experiences in the language of the Masters. Working with the language arts teacher, he co-created a writing activity on "My Most Powerful Lesson," where students were asked to think back on an experience that they believed had taught them an important life lesson. The language arts teacher selected several stories for the students to read to illustrate the power these lessons can bring to your life. At the same time, in art class, Mr. Jaskoski introduced the students to examples of the work of several artists, most notably the Chicago artist Ivan Albright, whose work communicates a rich message in very powerful images.
In one featured painting, "That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do," for example, a door with a funeral wreath symbolizes the regret that all people experience ifor missed opportunities in life. Mr Jaskoski intentionally selected artists whose works reflected a variety of styles.
In language arts class, using laptops, the students wrote an original story about a life lesson that they had learned that they felt was accompanied by deep emotions. The emotion might be fear, pain or humor. These stories were peer edited and served as the basis for their art project.
Back in art class, the students were introduced to a variety of online tools for creating stylistic art beginning with the National Gallery tools but including a host of others. They were asked to select an artist whose style they believed was a good match for their message and identified a tool that would help them approximate the style of that artist. The work was done on tablets, whose combination of computer power and tactile control seemed perfect for implementing the tools. Even students who did not think of themselves as being artistic loved to pinch, swipe and tap their way to electronic art that they felt expressed the emotion that was the theme of the essay. The ability to use their finger as a drawing device gave them maximum control and reminded many of the students of the finger painting they enjoyed in their youth!
Once the art had been created, each student returned to their laptop and added the art to their essay creating a page of a class eBook. Using the free authoring program TreePad on one of the laptops, the students each added their page to an eBook that they were able to publish to their tablets to share with parents and friends.
Each student's work was self and teacher assessed using a rubric that featured three sections. The first was the district rubric for a personal narrative; the style used for the life experience essay. The second section assessed the student's effectiveness in learning and using the technology art tool. Finally, the last section looked at the expressive qualities of the finished art. The rubrics were designed as .pdf forms, allowing the students to complete them on their tablets, and then upload them to a teacher folder in the classroom management system.