Week six: Book Binding & Story telling
November 6th 2021
Method of instruction: Zoom
Age Group: K-5
Teachers: Kora Burke & Rachel Meyer
Student Artwork
Reflection
Essential Questions:
How can words and pictures work together to tell a detailed story?
Is a picture worth a thousand words? (good for discussion)
How does refining artwork affect its interpretation to a viewer?
What is the moral of the story? What's the message?​
Learning Objectives:
By the end of class, TLW invent a unique fantasy character and setting. (Anchor Standard 2)
By the end of class, TLW bind a book with string. Anchor Standard 3
By the end of class, TLW write and illustrate an original fantasy book. (Anchor Standard 6)
By the end of class, TLW present their illustrated book to the class, explaining their artist choices and thought processes. (Anchor Standard 5)
Lesson Summary
Our last Saturday Morning Art Workshop was perhaps our best yet, the students were excited about the lesson and presented creative, well-done pieces, and the lesson was well prepared, a great way to end the 6 weeks. As always we started out with a bellringer that has easily become my favorite warm-up exercise for the students and pairs well with any narrative-themed lessons. We utilized a technological tool called a random word generator and showed the students the words that came out when we generated them. We then told to the students to invent a character using the three words provided and to sketch it out. After sharing out, the students were able to build off of each other's ideas and become inspired when thinking about characters/ stories and how to describe them verbally and visually. We discussed these points with them and asked them leading questions about how much information visuals provide the viewer. We then followed our general format, referencing our artist examples and introducing the agenda for the day. the first part of our lesson was directed toward the specific artist concept of bookbinding. We provided the students with a prepared booklet but gave them the opportunity to tie the pages together in two different fashions that we explained and demonstrated to them.
Once we finished the bookbinding portion, we talked about what elements are found in a book, including a cover page, dedication page, etc. Finally, the students were given time to brainstorm whether they wanted to create a narrative book using the characters they created from the trading card lesson, create a how-to formatted book, or a style of their choice.
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The students ended up being pretty split in terms of what style of the book they chose to do, and how they chose to bind the book, but they were all very enthusiastic about where their stories and illustrations were headed.
Since this was our last lesson we asked the students for feedback about the workshop as a whole. We presented the previous lessons and asked which ones were their favorite and least favorite, and why. Although the students all said positive things about every lesson, most said their favorite was either the trading cards lesson, or the diorama. They did not however provide any feedback on areas we could improve, and all said they did not have a least favorite lesson.
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Final Outcomes and Modifications
The students were working hard until the end of the period and many of them were able to make great progress on their books, but still had a lot to finish. Although what they presented to the group was so impressive to me and Rachel and it was clear they got a lot out of the previous trading card lesson, in terms of describing a character, and that they really listened to us when we provided expectations of the finished book. For example, the students spent time adding color, background and distinguishing features to their characters, in addition to providing written captions for each page.Â
While I would consider this lesson, and the incorporation of one of our previous lessons to be a huge success, there were some areas of improvement I would want to consider in the future. The main thing that did not go perfectly in the lesson was that the students did not have enough time to finish their books. While I appreciate that they each took the prompt seriously and were spending time on each page if I were to re-do this lesson in the time allotted I would change it from a book to a comic book page. That way, it would not be as time-consuming but they would still get the same lesson. The other area I would change with this lesson would be bookbinding. Specifically, if this lesson was taught again on zoom, I would have the books already bound because it was a time-consuming process, and too advanced for the younger ages.