Week #5
Monday's class went really well. For the first time in a while, I was over-prepared for the class and we did not get to get to everything I had planned to talk about. We did the second half of our art-share, where the guys brought in stuff that is meaningful to them as art. It is great to see some of them getting so into the class lately; a couple of them are going deep into researching artists. A few of them worked together on an extra project that involves re-writing Shakespeare and a large collaged poster to go with it. I told them when I expect to end the class (April 11), and gave a reading assignment and typed-up questions for them to respond to.
[our author describes the best 'education of an artist', and prescribes a liberal education with the goal of being 'integrated' person.] questions were:
1. do you see the author's philosophy as useful?
2. what obstacles are there to achieving this vision of being 'integrated'?
3. what does being 'integrated' mean to you, as someone in prison?
I should really do more with the question of what we want to know from the students. I am genuinely interested in some of the things they bring in to discuss, but I want to make the class inspiring so that they take back a different way of looking at the world when they go back to their day to day in the facility. (For me, that's what art has done: changed my perception of everyday 'mundane' things. Could it help them in prison (and beyond) if I can foster this?)
I'm bringing the class into learning about formal aspects of art--how to understand it through elements of design and vocab (scale/unity/repetition/figure-ground/etc). I want to have them get this down while talking about art movements and art from different places. The idea is that they can benefit from knowing what to look for in art/imagery, how to talk about its meaning, and also can make thier own more affective because they'll have these elements in mind.
As a final project, I want to compile their work into a zine project, some kind of publication that can hold writing, drawing, photos, anything they want. This they can hopefully spend at least two class periods finishing, to be a venue (however small) for them to communicate to the outside. Back to that communication thing though; I think I have to open up more dialogue now about blunt questions, what they really think of in their day-to-day. That should be an assignment soon if we're to get into anything deeper.
One concern i am left with is that not all of them yet get the author's argument in the book we talk about. She critiques modern understanding of art, but doesn't lay out her assumptions clearly in the beginning. I take it for granted that how we commonly think of art (and everything else) is western, individualized, coming from within the liberal enlightenment tradition. We haven't gone there though, to discuss what "liberal enlightement tradition" means, and maybe they've, uh, never talked about that. I want to write my own essay or something to share with them, cuz clearly that is still a rock in some of their boots, giving us trouble.
that's "it"
[our author describes the best 'education of an artist', and prescribes a liberal education with the goal of being 'integrated' person.] questions were:
1. do you see the author's philosophy as useful?
2. what obstacles are there to achieving this vision of being 'integrated'?
3. what does being 'integrated' mean to you, as someone in prison?
I should really do more with the question of what we want to know from the students. I am genuinely interested in some of the things they bring in to discuss, but I want to make the class inspiring so that they take back a different way of looking at the world when they go back to their day to day in the facility. (For me, that's what art has done: changed my perception of everyday 'mundane' things. Could it help them in prison (and beyond) if I can foster this?)
I'm bringing the class into learning about formal aspects of art--how to understand it through elements of design and vocab (scale/unity/repetition/figure-ground/etc). I want to have them get this down while talking about art movements and art from different places. The idea is that they can benefit from knowing what to look for in art/imagery, how to talk about its meaning, and also can make thier own more affective because they'll have these elements in mind.
As a final project, I want to compile their work into a zine project, some kind of publication that can hold writing, drawing, photos, anything they want. This they can hopefully spend at least two class periods finishing, to be a venue (however small) for them to communicate to the outside. Back to that communication thing though; I think I have to open up more dialogue now about blunt questions, what they really think of in their day-to-day. That should be an assignment soon if we're to get into anything deeper.
One concern i am left with is that not all of them yet get the author's argument in the book we talk about. She critiques modern understanding of art, but doesn't lay out her assumptions clearly in the beginning. I take it for granted that how we commonly think of art (and everything else) is western, individualized, coming from within the liberal enlightenment tradition. We haven't gone there though, to discuss what "liberal enlightement tradition" means, and maybe they've, uh, never talked about that. I want to write my own essay or something to share with them, cuz clearly that is still a rock in some of their boots, giving us trouble.
that's "it"
posted by rachel at 11:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home