Student Projects & Adaptations: South Vo-tech High School
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Barbara Schurman, Visual Arts
Abigail Franzen-Sheehan, Artist
Educator, Andy Warhol Museum
Summary:
Barbara Schurman and Abigail Franzen-Sheehan worked together to teach
the Critical Response Unit to the advanced art class at South Vo-tech
High School. Schurman wanted to follow the Unit steps closely. This
collaboration included multiple planning sessions and two trips to
the museum. Students learned about Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning
through physical movement activities and gestural painting. They created
a large gestural abstraction painting on a wall of paper using brushes
tied to yard sticks. To help emphasize the point-counterpoint model,
students were filmed during this painting process and compared their
movements and work to the film of Jackson Pollack painting. Students
used Critical Response skills to select a current pop icon for their
photographic silkscreens. After finishing the comprehension steps and
production work, students intuitively and critically responded to the
paintings, creating written criticisms after classroom discussion and
reading.
Adaptations:
Schurman adapted the lesson plan as
an entire unit of study for her advanced art class. She covered each
step over one to two weeks of classroom meetings, alternating reading
and writing activities with hands-on art making, including photo-collage
and photographic silkscreen printing. She adapted steps for the reading
and communication levels of her students using some of the concepts
from the elementary lesson plan to aid in their understanding. For
example: the photo-collages they created focused on internal feelings
(Abstract Expressionism) and external appearances (Pop Art).
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