James Nottingham, a house and the importance of goals.

So - i've had my first art lessons. Art is the only subject where i have a class by myself ( OK! There's only 12 of them - but they're MY kids :) )

We started with a who's who - went into why we teach art at school, and what art is. The kids discussed this in groups, that then again broke up into groups with one from each of the original group.

We brainstormed on a padlet ( link to follow) that i've made for general class discussion.

Now i introduced the kids first mini project. To make a name poster. The criteria, which i've learned the importance of from James Nottingham, where as follows.

You must use the whole A3 piece of paper

You must make 3 trials of each font, color and design.

The kids got annoyed. "Why do we have to do all of this cant we just start making it already?"

Then i remembered the house task - we had done with James Nottingham. A colleague has replicated it with her class with great success. So - i went for it. Ran for some paper and pencils and handed them out. READY? You can try an do this task at home. Don't peak - follow the instructions

"Alright kids - you have one minute to draw a house. Ready? Go?"

I set the timer for one minute - when it went off...

"Alright, you now have half a minute to give each other feedback on the house they've made"

I set the timer, it went off.

"Alright, you now have another half minute to improve your house based on the feedback you've been given by your peers"

Timer is set - and.... "PENCILS DOWN. Look up! Now we're going to score your houses. Ready?"

Anyone who has a chimney gets 5 points - the kids with a chimney wrote down 5 on the top corner.
Anyone who has a door in the middle of he house gets 2 points - same procedure
Anyone who has 4, not 2, not 3, not 5, but FOUR windows, gets 4 points.  - same procedure
Anyone with curtains in their windows get 5 points - same procedure.
Anyone with color on their house gets 5 points - same procedure.

You could easily hear their moans and groans, they weren't happy with my grading...

Then i said - "anyone who has drawn anything other than a house. This means a flower, a tree, a mail box, a sun, a cloud, grass - anything else", the kids waited with anticipation, ready to write down their score " gets minus 12 points"

The kids exclaimed "this isn's fair", but i shook it off.

"New paper!"

"You now have one minute to draw an interesting house, that has a chimney, door in the middle, exactly 4 windows with curtains in them and with some color. Don't forget, you should only draw a house, nothing else."

The timer is set, and the kids are on it.

"Now you have half a minute do give each other feedback on their drawing"

The timer is set -

"Alright, you now have half a minute to improve your drawing based on your peers feed back"

The timer is set and the kids are ON IT !

Timer beeps and the kids whine for more time, but i'm ruthless. "PENCILS DOWN!"

The kids are all fired up, and ready to tell me whats what.

"Alright, which house did you enjoy drawing more. The first one or the second one?"

The kids agreed on the second one. "But why" i said. "We knew what we were doing, so we could get the highest points"We discussed it in depth, as a few kids had started out with liking the first one, as they were free to be totally creative.

"Okay, what did you talk about on your feedback on the first house? "

The kids had told each other that it was pretty, cool, wish they could draw like that etc.

"What did you talk about on your feedback on the second house?"

The kids had told each other that they were missing a window, or that something didnt quite look like a curtain. Was that door completely in the middle? etc.

"So you liked knowing what you were doing? "

The kids said that they in fact DID want to know how to complete a task - and have goals.

"Alright, well, this was a test. You knew exactly how to draw the second house, because i has given you clear instructions. From now on, if you ever don't know what you are doing, or my instructions aren't clear, you need to challenge me. This way i get better too, and it'll be a lot more fun to produce art in this class."

The kids promised me, that they would help me They should always be able to answer these questions:

What am i doing?
How far have i gotten with it?
What am i doing next? 

By this little assignment, the learning taking place in my art class is becoming a shared responsibility. The kids are going to questions my tasks, but i should make the goals for each product clear, so that they can always answer the questions from above.

But what about the kids that initially liked drawing the first house better? Well, i've started my own project - where each kid has an ongoing project on the side, from what we are doing as a class, where they get to decide exactly what they are doing. This project is worked on if a kid finishes a task early, is they need a break from the task we are working on as a class ( we have art from 8.00 till 11.20 with a twenty minute break) and i'll even be giving class time for these projects.

The my own project seemed like a fair compromise, but on the same time, it let's me see what my kids enjoy about art, to target future assignments to their liking.

After this house assignment, we started brainstorming on our name posters, and the kids started with the trials and actual poster. All in all, successful art lessons and a happy teacher.