Week four: Fantasy Character Trading Cards
October 23rd 2021
Method of instruction: Zoom
Age Group: K-5
Teachers: Kora Burke & Rachel Meyer
Student Artwork
Reflection
Essential Questions:
What makes a good character?
What makes a good story?
How does the setting contribute to the mood of a story? To a character?
Learning Objectives:
By the end of class, TLW draw a character that is verbally described to them as a warm-up activity. (Anchor Standard 2)
By the end of class, TLW discuss how characters tell stories, contributing at least one idea to the conversation. (Anchor Standard 11)
By the end of class, TLW create 3 character trading cards with a picture of their original character on the front and a description on the back. (Anchor Standard 1)
By the end of class, TLW exhibit their trading cards with the class, describing how their characters relate to one another in their environment. (Anchor Standard 9)
Lesson Summary
Week four of Saturday Morning Art Workshops really blew me and my partner away. The students excelled in every area of the prompt, demonstrated strong collaboration skills, and responded well to feedback.
One of the reasons I think this lesson was a success was that we started out with a bellringer that required strong listening skills. We titled the bellringer 'my monster' and had the students draw the attributes of the monster as we listed them. We made a bullet point list of the different characteristics of the monster we wanted the student to draw and gave them the points one at a time, pausing to work. At the end of the bellringer, the students shared each of their unique monsters and were asked to reflect on how words and images can work together to tell a story to the viewer.
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With that thought in mind, we introduced the prompt and asked them to consider some essential questions as well as presented exemplary artists and our examples. We asked the students to invent characters and create backstories for them. They demonstrated these characters by drawing them on one side of a trading card and describing them with text on the other side of the card. The remainder of class was work time and the students actively provided feedback to their peers based on their character. My partner and I inquired about specific qualities of the character and how they could express that in their drawings.
By the end of the lesson, each student had at least 3 well-drawn characters and descriptions of them to share. Although the age groups varied, each student had incredible insight into their invented characters and demonstrated their artistic ability in conjunction.
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Final Outcomes and Modifications
One thing I thought of after the workshop was over that could potentially be beneficial to the lesson is to have the students write down the characteristics of the characters on the back of the card before drawing the characters. This is because several of the students got caught up in the quantity of trading cards rather than focusing on the descriptions of each of the characters. I would also add that after writing about their characters, one character should be completely finished before moving on to the next.  This would ensure that all the trading cards were well illustrated, including backgrounds, color, and accessories. Yet the elaborate stories that were told to us verbally, and the creativity put into the drawings more than exceeded my expectations.  I also think this lesson would work very well in arts integration as a literature or English course could pair very well with this lesson.