Creating a written thinking task in Art

Details
Written by Gillian Boniface
Parent Category: Visual Art
Category: Visual art 12-15
Created: 20 January 2012

Lesson aim and thinking aim

I could see that some students had difficulty in writing about pieces of art, and that the information and guidance I had given them was still not enough. I wanted to see if I could use step one of the framework to design a task that would allow for thinking to take place.

Outline

I started by thinking about what I wanted the students to learn and where they were having difficulties (sub-step one). I want them to be able to analyze pieces of art and to be able to do this they need to understand how the artist has used the elements of art to achieve certain effects. I them moved onto sub-step two (think of a task and list the possible answers) I decided on the painting "Hunters in the snow" by Bruegal, and listed what the students were liable to say if I asked them to write about this work. They would most likely produce biographical information on the artist, or go onto the internet and cut and paste existing information. So moving onto sub-step three (change the task so that typical answers are no longer acceptable) I devised a set of questions where the students would have to look at the picture carefully in order to be able to answer them.

Reflection

I was pleased with the final task as there was no way the answers would be easily attainable to the students. Partially this was because most questions didn`t just have one right answer. I started with some questions from the book "Come play with me" which looks at children in art and then developed more than focused purely on how the elements of art had been used.

I have never thought about just using step one alone before and have always tried to use the whole framework to devise units of work rather than individual tasks. I am not sure if the students need a thinking tool to solve this task, but I think I need to look at different models than just ENV. Or maybe it is ENV they need as they have to identify the different elements and explain how they have been used i.e what values have they been assigned, in order to answer the questions.

Comments  

# Larisa Sardiko 2012-01-22 10:38
Thank you, Gillian, it made me better understand how TTF really helps (I have problems myself). I also am trying to use all steps (or at least two) at once and normally it did not work.
# Alexander Sokol 2012-02-03 13:45
Gillian, I think the answer to the question whether students need a tool (ENV or any other) is very simple - they do only if they can't do without it. In other words, if they can cope with the task (reach the objective) without explicitly using any tool, we mustn't introduce it. It will just be a waste of time. If, however, the objectives of the task are not reached, I'd go for introducing one of the thinking models to help them. Which model it is will probably depend on the type of difficulties faced by learners. If you share how the task worked and what learners produced, we can discuss it more specifically.
# Deidre Jennings 2012-02-11 16:22
Hi Gillian I love this idea and can see where ENV might be applied when the kids get stuck answering the questions, but do you have alist of the non-standard questions you actually used?
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