Wendy Rominger is currently teaching art in grades 6-8 in Jackson Hole Middle School in Jackson, Wyoming.  She first found out about Creativity Express through a postcard she received from an art education convention.  The program seemed to meet many of the needs she was struggling with in her own curriculum and mixed computer use with studio activities, assessment quizzes, written reflections, and creating computer images that could be stored in a portfolio.

We asked Wendy about how she uses the software in her classes and the kinds of art her kids have produced as a result. Here is what she had to say: “I have the kids create a handmade cardboard journal that houses all their Do Art activities.  I have expanded the chapter Messages in Art as a spring board for a T-shirt design using lettering for their own message. I see my 6th graders 2 times a week which limits how much time we spend in Creativity Express but I strive to have them all complete up to 8 chapters if I see them for a semester. It has proved incredibly helpful when I have a substitute in my room. They have commented how wonderful it was and how engaged the kids were during the class.”

Wendy has noticed that some kids take more readily to the software than others however, and that if she doesn’t keep an eye on them they will skip over sections that are more or less optional so they can get to the challenge (at least they are ambitious!). Some of the kids are also moving quickly to wait to find out more about the artists or concepts covered, but they really love working with Corel Painter and expressing themselves on the computer. Interestingly, some kids prefer the idea gizmo than their own ideas for completing their art activities while others prefer to challenge themselves to come up with their own solutions. The software is flexible enough to cover both audiences and their needs! One favorite activity for all seems to be pulling the handle on the machine!

When we asked Wendy what she would tell a new teacher who had never used the program before, she recommended working through how to log students in, then unlock the chapters, explore the features of the gallery, artist cards, and how to track student scores before exposing the kids to the program. A digital painter program is really essential if students are going to create images on the computer. If you are wondering about the images in this blog, they come courtesy of Wendy’s students, wonderful examples of the kinds of artistic expression they found through the software.

Thanks so much for your time Wendy, and give our thanks to the students for their beautiful work!

With thanks to Circumerrostock for the sign!

Encouraging the artist within!

In his discussions of the arts and education, Eliot Eisner in his book, “The arts and the creation of mind”, states that the arts teach us to make good judgments while suggesting that problems have more than one solution; they teach us to embrace multiple diverse perspectives and to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of work as it unfolds; they allow us to communicate in ways unlimited by language and numbers and about the foundation of chaos theory — that small acts can have large effects. The arts also teach us to think through and within a material while exploring what cannot be said; and provide us with experiences we cannot access through any other source. But perhaps most importantly, Eisner claims, the ways in which the arts relate to curriculum communicates to the young what it is that adults value. The arts socialize us.

So how do we begin to craft an artistic curriculum? In the most recent issue of the journal Edutopia, teachers from around the nation discuss how they have grounded and built art into their curricula across a variety of subjects. Some incorporate field trips into any topic under study; Sandy Riggle has her geometry students explore reflections, rotations, enlargements and dilations, not to mention symmetry in Escher’s work, alongside research into the mediums used and attributes of the works. In Kansas, students create song lyrics around famous people and dances for mathematical operations, while making mini movies using Windows about the Middle Ages. Other students, similar to our blog on sensazione, create pictures based on the music they hear. These artistic intersections allow students to work several areas of their brains at once as well as unlock their creativity by mixing up media. February is Black History Month = you could always do what one school does and use this as a theme for the month, exploring Black artists over the ages as well as traditionally Black art forms and theirhistories!

If you are looking for something different to do with your own budding artists or just want to expand your own repertoire and mix it up a little, a good place for inspiration is connected to this blog.

Go ahead! Let’s get started with Art!

With thanks to Whirling Phoenix for the beautiful photo!