Monday August 5th, 2013

Today was the first day back at school with the students for the 2013-2014 school year. After a looooong, fairly depressing in-service week, I was ready to see my students and get into the classroom and do some learning and teaching!  As usual on the first day, there’s no rest in Art Class. All of my classes began a project with the exception of Graphic Media. 

The Graphic Media class used Visible Thinking Strategies

 http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/ 

to explore the idea of: “What makes a Great Photograph a GREAT photograph?” Students chose examples of what they thought were great photos from magazines and posted them onto the wall. Then they discussed and wrote a list of why they thought they were great photos. Once they decided on basic characteristics, the students looked for one more example of a great photo and posted it to the other side of their list. It was interesting to see the obvious difference between the two sides. After discussion, the students came up with the final characteristic: that great photos tell a story.

Great photos before discussion on the left, great photos after discussion on the right.

Students deciding the characteristics of a great photo.

The question I asked myself at the end of the day is: do they REALLY understand what a great photo is? Not yet, but for the first day of school these beginning discussions, the evidence of visible thinking, and the student’s enthusiasm for discovering, as opposed to being taught, the answers, was very encouraging. I look forward to continuing this discussion with the classes throughout the year, as the students revise their ideas of what makes a great photo.

Classroom Conversation Clips:

Some debate cropped up as to whether or not you can take a bad photo and make it great with a program like Instagram. I was very intrigued by the idea and vowed to my students we would try this this year. I have my opinionsbut I'll reserve judgment and let the students tell me the outcome after they explore this concept later in the year.

Overheard in Guidance on the first day of school: “Ms. Lange’s class is not what I expected, we started a project already today, I think I need to change my schedule!” While I'm not saying it’s a great thing that anyone wants to drop my class, I’m amazed at how many students are SHOCKED that we start work on the first day of school. Going over the syllabus is boring. Reviewing discipline rules and consequences is boring. Getting to know you “games” are boring. The best way I've found to keep a classroom full of high school students from getting off task is to keep them ON task, everyday, every minute, with meaningful, engaging assignments, that make them think, hard, from the first minute they walk in my room. So, go ahead, drop my class, in a month when all your friends are showing you the fabulous work they've created, you overhear the interesting discussions my class has prompted, and you see the awards they are winning, you’ll regret that decision, and I'll see you next year when you sign up again for the same class you dropped today.