Class Brainstorm completed at Arsenal Middle School using an overhead projector

I. Warm-up Activity: Brainstorming Web for Collecting

Procedure:

1. Create Brainstorming Webs on the blackboard as a group or individually on paper to reveal multiple ideas about collecting. Print student handout: Brainstorming Web    

2. Discuss the webs

• Where do you see connections?
• What can you group together?

3. List the ideas about collecting from the previous webs under each category. Print student handout:  Brainstorming List

• Personal Collecting
• Professional Collecting
• Institutional Collecting

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II. Discussion:

1. Hypothesize and discuss why artists use collecting in their practices.

2. Present the Handout: Overview of Artists and Collecting.
Use an LCD projector to view this handout digitally or print it in color onto a transparency to use with an overhead projector.

Discuss the following using the handout:

• Collecting is a visual activity, fundamentally about seeing and perceiving things together, whether they are objects, images, or sounds.
• Collecting is a means of discovery.
• Collecting provides ways to understand and organize our chaotic world.
• Collecting permits a person to explore and reveal personal, human, and societal patterns, connections, and associations.
  

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III. Collecting Activities

Choose one or both of the activities to do with your students.

The Pocket Project: Student Example

Activity 1: Pocket Project

Procedure:

1. Explore the Online Museum Pocket Project:
2. Students empty out the contents of their pockets and answer the following:
   
   
   • Describe what these objects are.
   • If someone came across this paper and didn’t know you, what could they tell about you (or your class)?
   • If someone 100 years from now came across your class’ collection of objects, what could that person tell about your class as a group?
   • What would this person learn about the time in which this collection was created?
   • What information is not revealed in these objects?

3. Make a photocopy of each student’s possessions.
4. Hang up the photocopied images.
5. Draw conclusions about your class based upon the objects. Use the Handout: What’s in Your Pocket?

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Red Objects Collection: Student Example

Activity 2: Collecting Homework

Procedure:

1. Collect things that are blue (over a weekend or 2-3 days).
2. Show Student Samples.
3. After allotted time has passed, have students present their objects and put together a class collection.
4. Discuss and analyze the class collection using the following questions:

• What was collected? Make a list.
• Use adjectives and descriptive language to summarize this collection as a complete grouping.
• Do you like this collection of objects? What is missing from the group?
• How did you go about collecting? What was your strategy?
• How would you change the criteria of your collection to make it more interesting?