Based on my experiences, many elementary aged children who attend public school are at greater risk than their suburban counterparts of losing themselves before they have an opportunity to discover who they are. Throughout the ages children have encountered and learned to endure some form of bullying, peer pressure, and familial struggle as they moved through life and matured into adulthood. However, children who are living in the 21^st century are also impacted by the pervasive and persuasive influences of this great technological age. Therefore, the 21^st century child being reared in an urban setting is more likely to face the same challenges we have all faced, while also having to discern the messages of technology and social media, in addition to a barrage of negative environmental factors. Life in the inner city is simply different than life in suburban areas. This was all painfully evident to me when I made the decision to pursue a career in visual arts education in 2010. I was thirty years old. Endeavoring to build a career in education of 21^st century children in the inner city was not a decision I made lightly, but more, one I made with an open heart and a desire to have a positive role in the future of my community and our world.

As I began training to become a teacher I had one consistent concern, classroom management. I knew how to make art and I knew that making art had been my salvation. I believed that art could save my future students in the same way it had saved me. I believed, all they needed was exposure to the arts and an opportunity to experiment and discover. As I began teaching it was evident that my concerns about classroom management were valid. Planning, organizing, and scaffolding content were my strong suit, but behavior, specifically middle school behavior, proved to be a challenge. After nearly ten years, middle school behavior remains a challenge. My middle school students often exhibit behaviors that are immature and telling of a lack of respect for themselves, their peers, the art materials, and myself. They lack the confidence they work so desperately to exude. They are extremely sensitive, but they lack sensitivity. Their lack of awareness is perhaps the most tragic part of this whole equation. This is problematic, partially because it has left me feeling disenchanted with teaching. Arts teachers have to work harder than teachers of core subjects to garner student respect. Students, sometimes parents, have a distorted perception of art and what is supposed to happen in the art room. Sometimes school districts and administrators perpetuate that distorted perception. It’s disheartening. I often remind myself of all the facts I listed earlier and I try to holdfast to the passion and promise I possessed when I first entered the profession.

I have decided to develop a unit for students on the cusp of middle school with the intent to elicit a greater level of interest and respect for art as they transition into sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. How will I combat daunting socio-economic factors, advancing technology, peer pressure, bullying, familial struggles, disrespect, and a distorted perception of art? Awareness, I intend to combat those things by endeavoring to develop awareness in my students; awareness of themselves, awareness of how they interact with others, awareness of their environments and how they treat them, and an awareness of how their past and present can effect their future. Awareness is the only way to combat ignorance.

At the beginning of my Teachers Institute of Philadelphia (TIP) Seminar, The Dark Fantastic: Reading Science Fiction, Fantasy and Comics to Change the World, I had no idea what type of unit I wanted to create. I knew I was quickly approaching burnout with my middle school students and I hoped something in the seminar would spark an idea for how to reengage them. Similarly, I hoped the spark would be strong enough to light my way through the disenchantment I had been feeling about teaching the middle school population, and science fiction seemed like a topic that would interest middle school students. On the very first day of the seminar, Dr. Thomas read aloud an excerpt from a book. The excerpt was all about envisioning a safer world or a safe space. After reading the excerpt, Dr. Thomas asked us to consider our own notion of safety and to envision a world where we felt safe. Later, she talked about the correlation between the concept of safeness and our experiences. “What is your origin story?”, she asked us. Almost immediately I felt substantial. I felt like the me that had been shaped by my experiences mattered to Dr. Thomas, just because she asked a question that signified a concern for what makes me feel safe.

Before the first day of seminar I wondered how my urgency to develop student engagement and alter student behavior would be relative to the Dark Fantastic. When we began by talking about a sense of security and origin stories I was reminded of comic book characters. Many comic book characters have an interesting origin story and they endeavor to help others feel safe due to a lack of safety they felt at some point in their own lives. The first day of seminar literally lead to a string of thoughts. Origin stories made me think of comic book characters. Comic books made me think of the Black Panther film that released in 2018. Black Panther made me think of my middle school students and how influenced and inspired they had been by the film. I quickly realized, we all have an origin story, even children. No matter how obnoxious they can be, teens and pre-teens have their own origin stories. They have times in their lives when they may not feel safe or understood, and like many of the characters in comic books, they want to overcome those fears and feelings of inadequacy. Ill-equipped with the coping skills and sense of self some adults develop through life experience, children wear a shield. Their super power becomes their indifference, their insensitivity, or their disrespect.

As we delved deeper into the seminar, I learned that Science Fiction is a broad genre that encompasses many different subcategories. Speculative fiction was the subgenre I found most appealing. According to Masterclass.com, “speculative literature changes the laws of what’s real or possible as we know them in our current society, and then speculates on the outcome.” (MasterClass, 2019) As an early assignment, we read the foreword and introduction to the book “Octavia’s Brood”.  The writer of the foreword, Sheree Ren’ee Thomas, spoke about Martin Luther King Jr. and how his dreaming of equality was a form of speculative fiction because he was dreaming of a world that was unlike one he had ever known. (Thomas, 2015) I had spent the better part of the school year dreaming of an art studio in a public school setting where students instinctively demonstrated a respect for their peers, the materials, the subject matter, their time, and ultimately themselves. I was dreaming of something I had never known, because my experiences in public school art studios were built around managing student behavior versus teaching art. Even today, as I work through this unit, I realize teaching has become my secondary objective. Many days my primary objective is managing behaviors, whether proactively or reactively. The teaching career I am living through is nothing like the one I envisioned when I endeavored to become a visual arts teacher of elementary-aged inner city dwellers nearly ten years ago. Thus, my initial reason for become a public school teacher was speculative.

Later in the “Octavia’s Brood” text Walidah Imarisha wrote, “Whenever we try to envision a world without war, without violence, without prisons, without capitalism, we are engaging in speculative fiction. All organizing is science fiction…Because all organizing is science fiction, we are dreaming new worlds every time we think about the changes we want to make in the world.” (Imarisha, 2015) In essence my whole teaching career has been a work of speculative fiction with the dream of making it a reality. People speak about equality with regard to many things, but educational equality is a dream of mine. The Philadelphia School District’s mission states that students deserve a quality education regardless of their zip code. This statement could not be more true, but it is easier said than implemented. We all know there is inequality amongst the schools in the school district and much of that truth is largely due to zip code and the attitudes of the people residing in those zip codes. I grew up in a safe and relatively quiet neighborhood within the city of Philadelphia. I attended a Catholic school. I was always interested in art, but my small Catholic school did not have the budget to hire an art teacher. Imagine my frustration when I begin to pursue art education in high school and college only to find that I was behind the learning curve. My peers had been exposed to art education in their schools, but I had had to rely on my own practice or the lessons my father had time to offer. All children, throughout the world, should be offered the same educational opportunities. That is our duty as a society. We must level the playing field. My career in education has been devoted to the notion that all students deserve a quality arts education in order to reap all the benefits engaging in the arts has to offer.

Now, more than ever, this unit will function as a piece of speculative fiction. It is my dream to instill and evoke productive and respectful behaviors in my students in order to create an ideal learning environment and in order to reduce my own burn out and disenchantment. What I know, based upon my experiences, is that students who live in the inner city and attend public school are up against many odds before they even begin high school. In this unit I will be developing lessons as a form of speculating about how I can elicit the change I want to see in the public school students’ mindset in order to yield better lives for them, and a more equitable world. When creating the lessons for my unit I speculated about how my teaching experience could be different if students approached my class with an open mind, versus an idea that art means crafts and fun. I speculated about how my students’ lives could be different if I could make them see the importance of art despite it being considered a “prep” or a “special” in my school community. I speculated about how I could make art more relevant and engaging for children. In the process of hatching the unit I developed speculations about why my students are the way they are, and I surmised that student misbehavior is a result of a lack of awareness. Of course students are conscious of the things they go through, but are they aware of how those experiences have the potential to shape them? The only way to understand this is to bring more awareness to it. Students must be made aware of the impact of a life experience. They also must be aware of ways to acknowledge those experiences and cope with them. Additionally, I must be aware of the differences between the lives of students and my own. I must also be aware of practicing educational methods that do not alienate my students.

There are obvious differences between my students and I. I am an adult and they are children. I am in control of my physical environment, they are not in control of where they live. I have more control over how much I allow emotional stressors to effect me, many of them may not have access to those coping skills. However, there are some differences that are not so intrinsic. I was raised by my biological mother and father. Some of my students are being raised by a single parent, or a grandparent, or foster parents. I attended a Catholic elementary school, they attend a public elementary school, two very different educational settings. I did not have special subjects like art and music in school on a consistent basis, they do. I was born and raised in the 20^th Century before the advent of the internet. They are growing up in the 21^st Century where, even in the midst of a global pandemic, there is technology so advanced that they can log onto a device and interface with their teachers and peers daily. Without awareness of all the differences between us I could, and probably do, commit microaggressions against my students all the time. After reading the article “Ending Curriculum Violence” from tolerance.org, I became very aware of the need to routinely assess the presence of curriculum violence and microaggression in my own classroom. Although author Stephanie P. Jones focused mostly on curriculum violence with regard to racial trauma, reading the article made me aware of the fact that there are still thoughts, opinions, ideas, and ignorance I possess with regard to the student body I service, in spite of my own brownness. There are ways in which I could be subconsciously inflicting trauma on my students. To remain aware of this is paramount if I want to make my students feel as substantial as Dr. Thomas made me feel on the first day of the Dark Fantastic seminar.

For my unit, I have planned five lessons for 5^th graders that will expose students to various artistic techniques, art related vocabulary and concepts, and visual arts media. I typically use an array of teaching strategies in my classroom, which include; modelling, student-led activities, cooperative learning, experiential learning, objective transparency, feedback, class discussion, and graphic organizers, to aid in the acquisition of vocabulary and concepts. As I give brief descriptors of each lesson I will identify the specific teaching strategies to be used.

In the first lesson, students will be asked to consider their own beginning by creating an origin story in the form of a poem. Students will work from a modified template of an “Where I’m From” poem in order to craft their origin story. The template I created for this lesson is a modification of the “Where I’m From” poem that was written by George Ella Lyon. In addition to writing, students will be able to use doodles, paint and coloring utensils to create an illustration that will frame their origin stories. I plan to utilize modelling, feedback, cooperative learning, and class discussion as teaching strategies to aid in the effective execution of this lesson. We will begin by using the “I do. We do. You do” method to complete the poem template. Following the development of the poem, students will be given a sheet of tracing paper and several print outs of doodle images. In this section of the lesson cooperative learning will be taking place as students explore the process of using different line characters and different pictorial symbols to create doodles that illustrate their origin stories. While working in small groups students will inevitably share their ideas, seek advice, and share the images they create and discover.

In keeping with the theme of self reflection and representation, students will work collaboratively to create a quilt. Quilting is a beautiful way to establish and represent community. Modelling and cooperative learning will be the most helpful strategies in teaching students to sew in this lesson. When teaching students to sew, I plan to demonstrate, in increments, with small groups of students. As students practice and learn the skill of sewing, I will identify students who demonstrate mastery of the skill to assist their peers. Students will also learn about the quilters of Gees Bend Alabama, who crafted quilts using whatever textile materials they had available. They too will be encouraged to bring in pieces of fabric from objects that are meaningful to them to sew an individual quilt square. Perhaps a student has a piece of fabric from their favorite childhood doll or a swatch from their favorite childhood sheets, if so they will be encouraged to add that material to their individual quilt square. Once each student’s quilt square has been completed, students will include their squares in a class quilt that can be displayed outside of their homeroom.

Artists have been making photographed self portraits for centuries, but the selfie is a futuristic concept. When I introduce the topic of portraiture to older students I am often met with instant doubt and frustration because older children are more inhibited and critical of themselves. They feel they do not posses the skill to draw or paint a person. While I feel it important that students are learning technical drawing and painting skills, I know they are reluctant to invest in a project that they feel ill-equipped to produce. In consideration of those concerns, students will be able to use a smartphone, computer, or digital camera to create a series of expressive self portraits. Students will be encouraged to show a different and distinct emotion in each of their photographs. Prior to their portrait sessions, students will learn about composition, positive, and negative space. The fifth grade students will be encouraged to consider these concepts when taking photographs or editing them for submission. There will also be discussions centered around mood and how the use of certain colors evokes mood. There is an Instagram page called Humans of New York. Humans of New York presents a pictures of people, sometimes their face, sometimes just their hands, and sometimes just their legs and feet, but there is always a story accompanying the photograph. Some time ago, Humans of New York compiled a bunch of those stories and images to create a coffee table book. I thought it would be wonderful to give students a voice to share part of their story in this way. Of course, we will not be able to post their images and stories on Instagram, but I have developed a template in the style of an Instagram post. Students will be able to select one of their images from the series, print it, and attach it to the template. Under the image the students will write a caption or story to accompany the image. Once parent permission is obtained, the students submissions will be collected, copied, printed and bound to create a book. My goal is for each student to receive a copy of the book. This lesson will offer the opportunity for inquiry guided instruction, experiential, and cooperative learning as students take risks and experiment in order to find answers to their own questions about how to honor the artistic concepts of mood and composition. I really think students should do their own exploration of self portraiture versus my modelling self portraiture for them because students will often replicate my example in the hopes of getting it “right” or doing a “good” job. However, if the goal of this whole unit is to encourage self discovery and celebrate individuality, I want to avoid the pressure of images that are supposed to look a certain way.

Our fourth lesson, will require students to work in a manner that is speculative, by creating a futuristic found poem. A found poem is a work that uses pre-existing text which is altered in some way. There are different processes that can be employed to create a found poem. The erasure method requires the poet to black out or obscure the parts of the text that not relevant to the poem. While there is another method where words or phrases are collected from a piece of text and then compiled to create a poem. Students will be made aware of both these methods before selecting the method they would like to use to create their own poems. Once the poem is complete, students will have an opportunity to create a full color illustration around the poem. The objective here is to encourage students to begin thinking about the future, not their own individual future, but the future of the world and society as a whole. Teaching strategies in this lesson will include feedback, class discussion, and both experiential and cooperative learning. The fifth and final lesson of the unit will require students to focus on their individual futures and set goals. Graphic organizers will be created and used to help students brainstorm about and develop their short term and long term goals. Once students have identified their goals, we will collect visual materials as a representation of those goals. Students will have the opportunity to use images from newspapers and magazines to represent the goals they identify. Students may also use one or two small three-dimensional objects to accent the two-dimensionality of their work. The same applies for texture. Students will be encouraged to add both manmade and natural materials with an array of textures in order to utilize the principles of the design; movement, rhythm, balance, pattern, and symmetry. Again, this lesson will also invite teaching strategies such as feedback, cooperative learning, and experiential learning.

I really would like our art classroom to function as a studio. During my undergraduate studies at The Cleveland Institute of Art and Moore College of Art & Design, I found it so refreshing to have my peers right there if I needed feedback, assistance, or inspiration. Energy is a life force that I think many of us overlook and take for granted. The raw and emotional energy you find in a creative space is often paramount in the production of creative work. The same way musical artists feed off of each others energy in a sound studio, so too do creative spirits in a visual arts studio. I have witnessed students respond to each others energy in both negative and positive ways. While, a quiet space is often cathartic, there is beauty in noise. However, I will be working to help my students understand the difference between noise for the sake of making noise versus the buzzing of focused production and creativity.

Although this unit is a gentle shift away from lessons that are heavy in historical artistic technique, I was still very vigilant in developing lessons and activities whose outcomes adhere to district and national standards. According to the visual art curriculum set forth by the School District of Philadelphia, students in 5^th grade should be able to create drawings and paintings using a variety of media and techniques including pencil, crayon, marker, oil pastels, colored pencils, and chalk pastels. Students should understand and demonstrate the use of line in their work. They should identify and describe orally and in writing the subject matter, symbols and ideas in their own art work and that of diverse cultures and historical periods. Students should know that artists get their ideas in many ways, some of which include nature, emotions, poetry, fiction, imagination, history, and current events. Fifth grade pupils should know and use the terms color, line, shape, texture, balance, symmetry, and rhythm as part of their art vocabulary. They should be able to observe and identify movement, pattern, contrast, emphasis, and composition in their work. While exploring and developing confidence and control in using felt, fabric, and yarn, students should also learn to execute both running and cross stitches in order to sew pieces of cloth together. Lastly, and possibly most significant to the outcome of the unit, students must use art materials and tools in a safe and responsible manner. (Kane, Curricular Unit: Visual Arts 2012)

As the standards dictate, students will be able to identify and define line, color, shape, space, and texture as elements of art in order to engage in critical thinking processes when creating their own work and to aid in the acquisition of art vocabulary. Students will be able to use pencil, crayon, marker, oil pastel, colored pencil, and paint in one image in order to understand and create a mixed media image. Students will be able to draw from nature, emotions, poetry, imagination, and current events in order to generate ideas essential to creating their own works of art. Students will be able to create two poems in order to express themselves in writing. Students will be able to participate in class discussion, gallery walks, and critiques in order to express themselves and ideas about their own art, and art created by their peers, orally. Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the terms balance, symmetry, rhythm, movement, pattern, contrast, and emphasis in order incorporate these themes in their work. Students will be able to identify and define the terms composition, positive space, and negative space in order to create images that are well composed. Students will be able to explore with felt, fabric, and yarn in order to develop control and confidence in using these materials to make art. Students will be able to execute a running stitch and a cross stitch in order to sew pieces of fabric together. Finally, students will be able to use art materials and tools in a safe and responsible manner in order to fully explore art materials and techniques, and create a comprehensive breadth of work at the culmination of this unit.

Our school schedule is created to allow for students to engage in one special subject everyday for an entire quarter. This type of schedule is conducive to creating a continuum of learning and being able to focus on one unit each year. Since, the schedule is set up this way, I often structure the fifth thru eighth grade classes in the way college courses are structured. I like to begin with a schedule that is very similar to a syllabus. On the first day we review this schedule and we discuss the “why” for our learning. Essentially, students are made aware of the objective and intended outcome before they are ever exposed to the course content. After reviewing the schedule, we review the rubric. The rubric I have developed for assessing students was designed to be simplistic enough for them to understand. Students are made aware that each project they complete is graded with regard to how well they followed the directions or guidelines of the assignment, their craftsmanship, and their time management, which is often linked to their behavior. On the back of each project they submit they will find a “D”, a “C’, and a “T’ with a number next to it. Those numbers are added together and the sum divided by three to produce their final project grade. This number is circled so that students can find their final grade quickly. In my experience, I have found that transparency with regard to lesson objectives and grading yields the best result with regard to student accountability. I often hear students speaking to each other while completing assignments using statements like “well, you followed the directions, but look at your craftsmanship. It’s not neat. You know you’re going to lose points for that.” Transparency with grading also allows me to easily remind students that they need to be on task. When I see a group of students that are playing with supplies or spending more time engaging in conversation than creating, I can simply whisper to them, “remember, your time management is factored into your overall grade. I would hate for you to receive a “C” on this beautiful project because you haven’t mastered the art of working and talking at the same time. If you aren’t able to do both at the same time, choose working over talking for the sake of your grade.” These prompts work at varying degrees depending on the attitude of the class or the individual student. Nonetheless, developing a process that is communicated to the students creates consistency and accountability for both parties.

I am very excited to further develop this unit and then to embark upon its facilitation once it is complete. As I have previously stated, this current school year was particularly difficult and disenchanting with regard to middle school. While I know the 21^st century child in an inner city setting is met with many socio economic challenges, and technological influences, I believe there is hope for equality in education so that they too can be players in the development of a better world. That was my philosophy when I decided to pursue a career in education and my feelings remain the same. My participation in the Dark Fantastic seminar has given me the language to define my philosophy and relit the spark of hope I felt when I began teaching. Though speculative, the hopes and dreams I have for my students are attainable. Teaching is social justice work, and as Sheree’ Renee Thomas stated in her foreword of “Octavia’s Brood”, “I have a dream for the future and a love that has the best hopes and wishes for humanity at heart.” (Thomas, 2015)

Content Objectives & Teaching Strategies

As we delve deeper into the objectives and intentions of this unit, I would like to identify the overarching goals of the unit in order to develop more targeted plans for each lesson within the unit. The content objectives will explain what I want students to learn, while the language objectives explain how students will acquire knowledge and how they demonstrate ownership of the knowledge, technique, and skill they have acquired. There are four overall goals that this curriculum is being created to achieve. They are relevant to increasing student awareness of their attitudes and behaviors, and to increasing student awareness of how attitude and behavior directly correlate to the acquisition of new skills and knowledge. The overarching content objectives are as follows:

• Students will be able to use creative arts techniques as a vehicle for self expression.
• Students will be able to acknowledge the importance of using safety and practicing respect and responsibility when using visual arts tools, supplies, and materials.
• Students will be able to identify the elements of art and explain how they are as crucial to art as ingredients in a recipe.
• Students will be able to view works of visual art and use visual arts language when engaging in artistic discourse.

Earlier in my unit I spoke about my concern for my students’ ability to develop an understanding of who they are given the amount of distraction they face when living in urban environments, attending schools in urban environments, living through socio-economic challenges, accessing persuasive messages through technology and social media, and enduring peer pressure. The overarching content objectives are intended to address those concerns. My primary goal is to expose students to the emotional benefits of submerging themselves in the arts. Thus, I developed the content objective which states students will be able to use creative arts techniques as a vehicle for self expression. If students can learn the balance between respecting the arts but not taking them so seriously that they are discouraged and frustrated by the process involved with learning, then they will be able to experience the joy and relief of the creative experience. Adding to that, many of my students seem to struggle with verbally articulating and expressing their thoughts, feelings, and emotions in a manner that is appropriate and effective. I find that non-verbal forms of expression, like music, dance, and visual art are highly effective in offering students an outlet. The lessons in this curriculum were created with the goal to engage students and reduce inhibition so that they do not feel the pressure of “getting it right” that often chips away at their enjoyment of learning skills or techniques that are not easy and unfamiliar.

I have planned to diversify the way students are able to acquire knowledge. In the first lesson, students will be writing in addition to using visual arts techniques. The quilting lesson will require students to read about the quilters of Gees Bend. The third lesson will encourage students to operate and use familiar and existing technology to explore their original ideas, as they will be using smartphones to create a “selfie” series. Students will be speaking and listening in order to execute the futuristic found poems they will create in lesson four. Research and data collection will be practiced in the fifth lesson in which students will explore their personal goals.

Aside from diversifying the way students will learn, I have also created a series of lessons that will expose students to varied forms of artistic media and technique which is also critical in establishing their language as artists. Being able to practice, and eventually master (if they choose) varied artistic media and technique is similar to an individual who speaks several languages. As artists they will be able to communicate and reach a wider range of people. These lessons all align with my goal of offering my students exposure to and knowledge of the elements of art. In their first lesson students will be using varied line characters to create doodled illustrations of their poems. In addition to drawing, students will be able to use watercolor paints, inks, and colored pencil. In the quilting lesson students will develop their patience, hand-eye coordination, and attention to detail by learning to sew basic stitches. This will afford students an opportunity to develop with familiarity with various textiles with different textures including felt, cotton, and yarn. The selfie project will force students to consider the elements of color, value and space when composing their self portraits. This type of portraiture project will also familiarize students with some of the concepts and vocabulary associated with basic photography. In the final lessons of our curriculum students will be able to practice different collage techniques. They will gain exposure to the practices of using “X-acto” knives, decoupage materials, cardboard, and pastels.

My next major concern with regard to my students are their attitudes and behaviors. I worked with an eighth grade student during my first year with the School District of Philadelphia. He was not particularly interested in the visual arts, but, as we developed our teacher-student relationship, we were able to practice mutual respect for the expectations and needs of the other. He acknowledged that I did not need him to love art, but I did expect and need respect. I needed him in his seat and abstaining from the use of profanity. I expected him to practice self respect by making an effort to complete assignments and learn techniques, therefore allowing himself to learn a new skill and showing concern for his grades and his future. This student was both “book smart” and “street smart”. He was also a very accomplished musician and played in the school orchestra. He was murdered this year. From my understanding, his murder was due in part to mistaken identity and the company he kept. He was a great kid with so much potential. He was a child and now he is dead. I worry for my students all the time and I want them to understand that their attitude and behavior has an impact on everything. It has an impact on their education. It has an impact on their choices. It has an impact on their opportunities. It has an in impact on their futures and, though it shouldn’t, it apparently has an impact on their lives. I worry that if they do not learn to control their impulses their experiences and opportunities will continually be limited. I know this, because I, as their teacher, have had to shift lessons and alter materials when students continue to exhibit a lack of regard for their learning, their peers learning, the safety of themselves and their peers, and the materials we use to create art. Year after year I have watched my middle school students demonstrate a level of impulse control and poor choices that is most often associated with second and third graders. It is very concerning and I am determined to try to change that pattern of thought and behavior. The content objective that states students will be able to acknowledge the importance of using safety and practicing respect and responsibility when using visual arts tools, supplies, and materials was developed for that reason.

Throughout my career I have continually pondered how I can teach respect and responsibility. In my efforts to achieve this career goal, I have participated in intensive and extensive professional development on the subject, but life teaches us that experience is the best teacher. I know that my students know and feel that I respect them and that I take full responsibility for their safety and their learning. What I have not mastered is how to meter my tone and my actions so that my middle school students develop respect for me and practice respectful and responsible behaviors in my classroom.

Every year I consider what I would want an administrator to see if they randomly walked into my classroom. First, I want the classroom, to function like an art studio. There is a significant difference between an art classroom and an art studio. In an art classroom, students are seated, quiet or speaking quietly, and actively working on their projects. However, an art studio may be a little loud and busy with movement and production. Artists may move throughout the room to retrieve supplies. They engage in discourse about their work, their ideas, and maybe even their frustration when working with materials. They consult each other for support and constructive feedback about their approaches to executing their ideas. They aide each other in grasping techniques, acknowledge their peers’ mastery of a technique, and celebrate each others’ ideas. There may even be some artists wearing headphones in order to listen to music while executing their projects. As a graduate of a visual arts institution I realize this ideal of an elementary art studio may be a far reach, but I would rather set the bar high so that my students are on the path to college level thinking and behavior before they even enter high school. I struggled this year. I struggled with middle school and I know it is because I lowered my expectations of my middle school students when I became overwhelmed by the level of disrespect and disinterest I encountered in my art classroom. I use the word classroom loosely, because many days it felt like I was monitoring a cafeteria. Only, food would be replaced with art supplies that were mishandled and occasionally thrown across the classroom. I can not have another school year like this. My career will not survive the burnout.

I have a reputation for being a “cool” teacher. Students will routinely come to visit me to say hello, participate in random discussion about their day, and sometimes even vent to me about issues they may be having with another teacher. I cherish these exchanges, but I need my students to respect me as a teacher as well as a confidant. This year I plan to create a studio environment, particularly for my middle school students. Middle school students have not responded well to demands to remain quiet or self monitor their volume. They feel it is their right to converse loudly during art class. Is hasn’t worked to make threats regarding the destruction or misuse of supplies, because student’s parents and school administration do not see those behaviors as egregious. I often wonder if I’m being to lenient with regard to the boundaries that I set, or even if I am not being steadfast in upholding those boundaries. I wonder if I give in too easily to student complaints by compromising about guidelines, or bargaining about the type of assignments and materials students will be exposed to based on their behavior. I realize a statement like “we are supposed to use paint but we can’t if you can handle crayons or markers” gives the students all the power. That statement suggests that if they make the decision that horseplay and loud conversation are more fun than using paint that is what they will do until they are ready to behave in a manner that will allow for the use of paint. While, I am not interested in a power play with preteens and teenagers, it is my job to control and manage the class. It is also my job to ensure that learning takes place. Learning can happen in a busy environment, but my middle school students have not consistently been productive in the art classroom.

Here is my plan to create a middle school art studio. Students will no longer complete school art assignments, instead our projects will be referred to as jobs. My studies in Illustration were centered around work as a freelance artist. Our projects were assigned as if we were tasked with completing a job. Our grade was compensation for our successful execution of the job. While many of my students behave as if they aren’t concerned about their art grade in front of their peers, many of them are genuinely concerned about their grades and most of their parents are concerned about their grades. So this year, students will be tasked with completing jobs. Students who successfully execute tasks will be “hired” those who do not will fail to get the job. As such, grading of jobs will be pass or fail, versus A, B,C,D, or F. However, students will receive a letter grade for their studio behavior. This grade will be more reflective of their efforts versus their skills.

Additionally, I will work harder at creating an outlet for student work to be showcased and commended throughout the school building. If other teachers, administrators, and peers acknowledge student work that will motivate students who are creatively inclined and inspire those who may struggle. Thus, a personal career goal of mine for the 2020-2021 school year is to create an arts newsletter in conjunction with both the drama and music teachers. Another personal career goal of mine for the upcoming school year is to create an arts task force made up of middle school students who I can train to create creative displays of artwork outside of their classrooms. I would develop the task force in September, train throughout the month of October and begin to oversee the installations in November while increasingly minimizing my oversight and intervention as the school year continues to progress.

In order to manage misbehavior in the studio students will be allowed to move freely throughout the room to gather supplies. We will have periods of time during class that are strictly devoted to production and periods that are strictly devoted to conversation and exchange of ideas. During production periods students will not be permitted to talk, but they will be permitted to listen to music if they have ear plugs or head phones. Depending on the efforts to adhere to studio guidelines and thoughtfully execute tasks, students will receive incentives. Incentives, small laminated cards (the size of a credit card) can be redeemed for an opportunity to engage in a ten-minute discussion with a peer or have first access to limited supplies. These incentives will be distributed every Monday and will expire that Friday. Earning incentives will be competitive as there will only be three of each kind to distribute. Here I have created an outline that is less rule centered, but still structured. I will not be compromising with students regarding guidelines this upcoming school year, nor will I be altering assignments based on behavior. Students who are unable to manage supplies will likely be unable to complete the job, thus they will fail. As long as I maintain consistent communication with parents and administration, there should be no confusion or pushback. I think this system will encourage students to adjust their behaviors instead of assignments and materials having to be adjusted for misbehavior.

One of my primary reasons for embarking on a career as an educator of students in urban environments was a personal goal to bridge the gap of inequality that exists between students who are learning in urban settings and students who are learning in more rural or suburban settings. I realize my use of the word urban may even be misleading as certain urban environments throughout the city of Philadelphia, and many other cities in the United States, are being increasingly inhabited by more affluent individuals due to gentrification. However, in the City of Philadelphia and The School District of Philadelphia there is still an alarming amount of disparity amongst schools that are housed in different zip codes. While The School District of Philadelphia operates as one entity, the state of the neighborhood that houses each school building determines the state of the school’s appearance and climate. If a student attends a school district school in an economically challenged area of the city, the student does not have the same educational experience as students who live in sections of the city that are inhabited by more affluent dwellers. Thus, the school endures economic challenges, which yield many other deficits and challenges.

It troubles me that a district can be inequitable. I have heard my parents and many others in their generation proudly proclaim that they are products of the Philadelphia public school system. My father has explained how the schools were essentially the same, and only your zip code was the determining factor in the school you attended. If a student were to make the claim that they were a product of the Philadelphia public school system today, they might be inclined to delineate which school or the area in which they attended school because the schools in The School District of Philadelphia vastly differ based on zip code today. That being said, when considering a school upon site selection, I wanted to work in an urban area that was familiar to me. I wanted to be in an area where I could offer the students the quality of arts education I knew they would be unlikely to receive due to inaccessibility. My school, during my time there, is an example of the balance between economic challenge or disadvantage and rising gentrification. A large percentage of the students at Henry C. Lea Elementary face socio-economic challenges, but the school is located in an area that is steadily gentrifying so the student body seems to be slowly shifting. Due to the location of the school and the endeavors of administration, the students at Lea are able to benefit from partnerships with institutions like The University of Pennsylvania. This offers students greater access to opportunities that may not be offered to students who attend Philadelphia School District schools that are not in gentrified or located in collegiate pockets of the city.

Again, my primary focus when endeavoring to teach was to serve urban youth. Throughout my studies, I was exposed to students in every area of Philadelphia. In that time, I felt the demographic that was most in need of quality arts education and exposure were those students who didn’t live in the “nicer” areas. I also realized those were the students I could relate to personally. Although I had been raised in a quieter section of Philadelphia, and my parents had been able to make the sacrifice of sending my brother and I to a Catholic elementary school that was beautifully maintained and where there was hardly ever any student violence, I still did not have access to the arts in school. My formal art education began in high school. As an aspiring arts educator I knew that students who possess interest and talent in the arts would potentially be so much more advanced in their creativity if they were able to begin their formal arts education in Kindergarten. They say practice makes perfect, well, if students are able to begin practicing something in elementary school versus high school, they would be afforded an additional nine years of practice. When I really think about the amount of foundation, practice, and confidence I could have gained from being guided by an arts educator in the nine years I attended elementary school, I am astounded. I decided I wanted to be the person that offered students that level of guidance, practice, and confidence.

I am actually proud to say I succeeded. In my first year at Henry C. Lea Elementary I encountered a group of Eighth grade students who did not take art seriously. The art teacher before me had become disenchanted or discouraged, which led him to consistently call out of work and then quit. Add to that, the students felt they were not skilled or talented in drawing or painting so they had no interest in trying because they would become defeated and frustrated. I was facing a daunting task, I realized I would need to get them to take me seriously, and I did that by taking them, their lives, their interests, and their pursuits seriously. I validated their interests, so they began to validate mine. I modelled mutual respect, so they began to practice mutual respect. It seemed they felt, if Ms. Wood can listen to me complain about one of my other teachers, the least I can do is listen to Ms. Wood talk about abstract shapes or Illuminated letters. As a result of listening to me talk about Illuminated letters they were inspired to create their own.

I also taught them that art is more than drawing and painting. It’s concept, creativity, diligence, and then skill. If they had a creative concept I could teach them the skill they needed to execute it. Similarly, art is theory, history and discourse, so if they weren’t able to master a skill, but they actively listened when I spoke, they could acquire vocabulary and knowledge of different techniques. They might not feel confident in making art, but they possessed the vocabulary to talk about the art they viewed in a way that was more critical than “I like it. It’s nice. That’s ugly.” Instead of solely having them create projects, I tested them on their knowledge of vocabulary and concepts. This was a method of differentiating the learning, and it required them to think, read, and articulate their thoughts and understanding in words versus images. Their growth was incredible.

I also began to showcase their work. They were often excited and surprised to see something they had created on display outside of the school’s main office. Often, if a students’ work was not displayed they inquired why. I used that inquiry as the basis to encourage them to take craftsmanship more seriously, and that only yielded to more thoughtful and responsible artists. When they graduated from Lea, some of these students returned to visit. I happened to see them in the hallway and they were so eager to tell me how their ninth grade art teachers were teaching them value, perspective, and other concepts we had covered, but they were bored because they had already learned that with me. Differentiation, modelling, student based inquiry and discussion are all proven teaching strategies I can use to garner student interest. It is very important to me that my students are able to speak about their art, and art created by others, in addition to possessing the skill to create art. I know that if I remain consistent and tenacious my students will be able to identify the elements of art and explain how they are as crucial to art as ingredients in a recipe, and view works of visual art and use visual arts language when engaging in artistic discourse, which are the third and fourth overarching objectives of my curriculum unit.  

ARTIST SELF ASSESSMENT

Artist’s Name: _____________________________________________

Job Title: ________________________________________________

Task: ____________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Start Date: ________________________________

Due Date: _________________________________

Which elements of art were used to complete this job? _________________________________________________________

Directions Checklist:

• Complete the Origin Story Template (17 pts)
• Write Origin Story neatly on “good” paper. (17 pts)
• Create doodle composition on tracing paper. (17 pts)
• Transfer doodle composition to “good” paper to fill positive and negative space around Origin Story. (17 pts)
• Trace all pencil lines with black Sharpie marker. (17 pts)
• (Optional) Add color to illustration using watercolor paint, colored pencils, and/or markers.
• Completed self assessment. (15 pts)

Craftsmanship: How does your project look? 

• Neat & Clean
• Okay but could be better (-5 pts)
• Not so good (-10 pts)
• Pretty messy (-15 pts)

Time Management: Did you complete the job by the due date?

• Yes
• No… Why? ____________________________________________

Artist’s Statement: In a paragraph, explain what your piece is about. Explain how you felt during the process of creating the work and using the materials. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

ARTIST SELF ASSESSMENT

Artist’s Name: _____________________________________________

Job Title: ________________________________________________

Task: ____________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Start Date: ________________________________

Due Date: _________________________________

Which elements of art were used to complete this job? _________________________________________________________

Directions Checklist:

• Practice running stitch (22 pts)
• Draw an asymmetrical grid and plan out fabric placement. (22 pts)
• Use running stitch to complete quilt. (22 pts)
• Use overstitch to add backing to quilt square. (22 pts)
• Complete self assessment. (12 pts)

Craftsmanship: How does your project look? 

• Neat & Clean
• Okay but could be better (-5 pts)
• Not so good (-10 pts)
• Pretty messy (-15 pts)

Time Management: Did you complete the job by the due date?

• Yes
• No… Why? ____________________________________________

Artist’s Statement: In a paragraph, explain what your piece is about. Explain how you felt during the process of creating the work and using the materials. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Delacroix, J., Costello, M., Collins, C., & Jones, S. P. (2020). Ending Curriculum Violence. Retrieved May 06, 2020, from https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/spring-2020/ending-curriculum-violence

Introduction [Introduction]. (2015). In W. Imarisha & A. M. Brown (Authors), Octavia’s brood: Science fiction stories from social justice movements (pp. 3-4). Oakland, CA: AK Press.

Kane, C. (2012). Curricular Unit: Visual Arts. Retrieved May 06, 2020, from https://phila.schoolnet.com/Align/CurricularUnitDetail.aspx?content_id=74e8b487-aa11-45ab-bc5b-c00163c4128a

MasterClass. (2019, July 02). What Is Speculative Fiction? Defining and Understanding the Different Genres of Speculative Fiction – 2020. Retrieved May 06, 2020, from https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-speculative-fiction-defining-and-understanding-the-different-genres-of-speculative-fiction

Thomas, S. R. (2015). Birth Of A Revolution [Foreword]. In W. Imarisha & A. M. Brown (Authors), Octavia’s brood: Science fiction stories from social justice movements. Oakland, CA: AK Press.