Curriculum & Structure

Grading System:

We divide points based on the following categories:

55%: Effort=  Participation, Research, Daily Writing, Work in Journal

15%: Collaboration= Work in groups, embracing roles, listening, sharing out

15%: Creativity= Take chances, embracing innovation and uniqueness, variety, 

15%: Product= Shows voice, perspective, craftsmanship

Inquiry:

We will be combining our 3 Central Questions and Connecting them with Units/Projects we have brainstormed.  Right now we imagine 4 units- two per semester. During the process of working on these units we will make sure to include smaller projects that will serve as scaffolding for our final product

Possible Guiding Questions:

• How does art change people? How does art change understanding? (influence?)
• How does the viewer’s perception of art contribute to its meaning?
• How does art reveal (or hide/distort) truth? (is that enough?)  in ways that distinguish it from other methods of communication?
• What is creativity and how is it linked to critical thinking? (This is a great question- should stand alone)
• What makes a story powerful? How is our identity shaped by the stories we choose to tell? How is our identity shaped by the stories we hear? How does the genre of a story influence its meaning?
• What is the impact of seeing the world in terms of us vs. them? Why do people find comfort in classifying others? How does art influence the way we see ourselves in relationship to others (are the two previous questions too leading?) 
• “Through our scientific and technological genius we have made of this world a neighborhood, and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood… We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.” Martin Luther King Jr.
• “Expand the circle of human concern,” and promote the “network of mutuality,” while cultivating safe and challenging environments that ask others to think critically about their world outside of ego.
• How do public spaces reveal who we are and what we value? 
• How do we know if something is true or not?
• What does it mean to know, what is knowing?
• Who are you, how are we shaped by others, and how is that framed by our relationship/responsibility to the World?
• Who is the Media and what, if any, ethos manifest out of it?

Projects:

Big Units/Projects to Develop

Make a modern magazine in groups around a chosen topic that responds to one of our questions. (models, roles, guidelines and roll out dates very specific). What is Media, truth, fake news?

• Theme, Angle, Audience
• Develop a title, a logo, and brand. Design and layout.
• Journalism, fiction or non-fiction,  
• If we go with this project I have numerous lessons that could lead into it.
• Photo journalism, comic-strip, webpage-design.
• Reference: Rookie Magazine

Visual Literacy /Public Art Project: What defines a school’s values. Look at photos, go to other schools and interview students, teacher’s etc…to discover how the school’s decisions about how to present their school reflects the school’s/community’s values. Compare and contrast other schools with DHS and who we are. 

• How does space define us, our relationships, and responsibility to the World?
• Apx 14 days. End on Sept 28th

Lessons:

• Shots of Awe Video: Engineering our own Divinity 
• Answer the question above. Assignment to walk a space that is unlike Deerfield and document what you see (photos, write it down, draw it).
• Look at some public art - Show INSA final product.
• Responding to space reflection (1-2 days)
• Ekphrastic Poetry (1-2 days)
• Graffiti writing - Typography (2-3 days)
• Gif-fiti - INSA Augmented Reality (1 day)
• Public Installation Art - Word focus - Great Reference!
• Making the ART (5-6 days)
• Field Trip (2 days - meeting and critique)
• Looking at and critiquing some of the most avant-garde high schools around the country: https://www.besteducationdegrees.com/most-amazing-high-school-campuses/
• Signs: How do we name spaces?
• How does a school/town make us feel when we walk around in it? 
• Who makes decisions about what a school/town looks like? 

Shots of Awe- Jason Silva. Create a Video that explores a question that stems from one of our guiding questions. Performance Philosophy

• Introduce Oct 1st - End Oct 31st
• Poems, speech, non-formal
• Shots of Awe - Philosophy
• Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows - Truth
• The Power of story - How do the stories we share impact  who we are? What makes personal stories such a powerful influence?
• Does a story have to be true? 
• Roland Barthes- Readings

Lessons:

• Poetry
• Malcolm Gladwell, Lee K.  Abbot, Tim O’Brien, 
• Basic Video editing on I-Movie (Phone Apps) (1-day)
• Cinematography (Composition 101 & Lighting) 1-2 days
• Short photo lesson (take 4 composition pictures)

Exercises / Journal Projects:

“The Wall” Collaborative Mural: students add to the mural to start every class period, developing it over the semester. More powerful if in a public space.

• This should explore one of the bigger questions - possibly on identity, othering, knowing?
• This will document the progression of the class with a START and END, completed in sections as we move throughout the semester. On a mobile whiteboard with paper attached.

Begin each class period with “The Wall”  Students walk into class and write a quote, word, tape an image, lyrics, passage from book they are reading, word or quote they overheard in school, on the radio, etc… This is a work of art that we either build as a community work of art/take photos of it and make into a montage or we just erase it and re-create a new one at the beginning of class the next day. Mural as response to one big question. Maybe we take “Best of” What we decide to write on the wall and then have creation days where we work on our School Mural. Is there a place at School where we could exhibit this mural when it is over?

Cardboard Project

• Place tons of materials and cardboard in the middle of the room.

Collage - Everything is a Remix video: make a collage that includes text. Video

• Should be an early project

How to Draw: Basic drawing lesson 2-3 days. 

• Elements of art and color, learning how to see.

Juxtaposition and Context

• Place two images, two words, both, next to each other to change/enhance the power and meaning of both.
• Pinterest Link

Blackout Poetry

• Remixing

The Mirror Bias as Reflection - Part of the Video Unit

• How we see ourselves - how others see us
• Confirmation Bias - Truth - Fiction
• Growth - Forgiveness - Justice
• When is anger and retribution justified vs a focus on healing,  growth and reconciliation?
• How does an individual 
• Structurally there has to be a system that names what is morally acceptable. 
• Science of Happiness - Forgiveness