Arlington High School Internship.

So I realized that I never posted any post or images from my internship this semester, so I thought I should probably do that. This semester, I was placed at Arlington High School with Mr. Ted Braggins. Mr. Braggins is the coordinator of the art department of the school. It was great working with the main person in charge because he pretty much knew the ins and outs of the department and knew what he was doing.
At the beginning of the internship, we initially just observed the classroom. During the school day, Mr Braggins is primarily in charge of computer graphic classes. 1st period is his only actual tangible hands on art class period. This was class that we chose to work with. When we arrived in the beginning, the class was learning the foundations of art (line, color...etc.). We decided to work in a lesson that would bridge the 2 foundations they were learning...line and shape/form. My partner, Sarah Melvin, and I decided that a perfect activity would be to have the students create wire portrait sculptures. By doing this, the students learned how line is used to create shape and form.  For artist examples, we worked with the artists Alexander Calder, Elizabeth Berrett and Naomi Grossman.

The lesson begun with a 15 minute introduction to the project and idea. The students then started off by drawing contour line drawings of their faces by using a mirror. This took up the remainder of the first class period. On the second day, we started out by having a 5 minute review to the project and to get their creativity running again. From there, we had the students who were ready just jump right into the project, while the others finished their drawings and then started their sculptures. Over the course of the next 2 weeks, the students worked on completing the forms. I was quite happy to see the students had a great interest for the project. Many of them stated that it was a nice change from the 2D work that they primarily had been doing.
On our final day at the school, we finished up the lesson by allowing the students 10 minutes to complete whatever they needed to and then we would spend the rest of the class period having a class critique and discussion. Many of the students seemed to panic over this because they have never participated in a class discussion where they had to talk about others' work. What Sarah and I had them do was choose a piece from the entire class' work and bring up 2 things..1) Why did they choose this certain piece?/What do they like about it?/Qualities that work and 2) What is one thing that you would change or fix. We had them approach this as more critical feedback and less "I don't like this so change it!" Overall, the discussion went over really well and the students actually had many great things to say about their peers' work.
After the class was completed, Sarah and I took all the sculptures, all drawings that we had, printed a few pictures of the students working and placed everything into a display case right outside the classroom in the hallway. By doing so, the students will be able to see their work on display and be proud of it, but at the same time, it allows for the rest of the school to see the work that their peers are creating and hopefully spark an interest with them.