structured freedom.

today i started talking to my d&p students about how to use lines to communicate not only our observations of shape and location, but also the character of an object....its essence. we talked about varying the materials, weight, and the style we use to make our lines.

in a effort to have the whole class working toward the same goal but at different levels i placed the same materials and the same still life objects on each table. i also put a sheet of paper with a phrase that referred to the pre-assessment observation drawings we did on monday on each table. the four phrases were different and referred to the levels the students are at.

i asked them to read each of the four phrases and to sit at the table that best described how they were feeling about the work they did.

i choose the still life objects very carefully making sure that some can be altered or manipulated to make the still life more or less complicated. last year this worked out perfectly. the more advanced students went nuts with the fabric and string creating something that would really challenge them. but this group is sooooo different. most of them chose to sit at the middle of the road table and did little to manipulate the objects.

so...what did i do differently? did i not introduce the concept the same way? was i trying to cram too much into an hour? or is this just a different bunch of kids? could be as simple as the difference between 10th grade fall and 10th grade spring?

these are the materials they worked with. maybe they don't even know them well enough.

here are the resulting drawings. i was glad to see the variety in the drawings...very different than when they only use pencil. but i was frustrated to see how they generalized the pattern of the basket...especially after we'd spent time doing blind contour and contour drawings. they didn't make the connection between that work and this work despite my reminders.

I'm hoping to get them to practice this a little more tomorrow and review the contour line drawing concepts with them. They want to sketch it out first. They want it to be perfect. They have a hard time silencing the critical voices inside their heads.