ABOUT

Scheduled annual art class time: 50+ hours

Curriculum: Grade 8 Ontario Ministry of Education elementary art curriculum & Ashbury College Junior School programming.

Project Concept: 

In term two and three of 2020, grade 8 art students were given the option to work on a minimum of three mediums (or more, and combining multiple mediums encouraged) as well as to research a minimum of three artists relevant to their work.

Students prepared their artwork and artist statements or interviews both in class time and out of class time. Writing about their artwork helped artists explore how to communicate meaning to their viewers. Completing research on other artists helped these young students show humility by naming their influences and situating their work in a broader context. A primary focus of this project was to help students develop the capacity to communicate meaning and the intention behind their work coherently in English. Providing students with months of in-class time allowed students to produce quality artwork that they were proud to share with others.

Grading rubric link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R11w1MDr9Dz5APgkfRE21HzDipWBzZ6H2cCTQCLcHLM/edit?usp=sharing 

Ashbury College Junior School 2019-2020 IDP (PBL) initiative: 
Interdisciplinary studies was implemented and the art programme is aligned across all grade levels with this initiative. 

Student Work examples

In many cases, increased project flexibility led to a tripling ofthe amount of time students might otherwise have spent in class due to their motivation and interest in these personalized projects.

Teamwork, exemplified by the Minecraft group of 4 exceeded many hundreds of hours and they worked to create a real-world application using architecture, urban design and city planning principles covering all aspects of a city’s needs (education, commercial needs and more). 

Families worked together throughout this second and third term, creating work with their child, and also creating artwork of their own, inspired by the assignments their children (and in one case, a grandchild) had in class. 

Materials

As a general principle, students had to provide or use (primarily) their own materials. This meant that the classroom was re-organised to give students space to store their materials and made them in general less wasteful and conscious of cost. As a result, students worked in many more mediums than they might otherwise have done given the logistics of setting up for a regular 60-minute art class. Students were also responsible for setting up and putting away their own materials nicely, which meant they were motivated to do this quickly to do their work for as long as possible. 

Art in service: making art on behalf of or for someone else
Ashbury has a strong commitment to public service and volunteerism. The Grade 8 programme this year highlighted, as much as possible, ways that artwork created for school could be offered to others. This art in service was demonstrated in many occasions through creating art for others in their families (patisserie, cards, gifts, flowers made of paper).

Rebecca (Benoit) Cragg, B.A., B.Ed., M.A. is an artist, author and devoted educator of the arts and art instructor at Ashbury College Junior School for the 2019-2020 year. She specialises in East Asian-inspired artwork including classical brush painting, Zen-inspired garden design, gold repair work, Japanese tea ceremony, textile (kimono) and food art (wagashi) and served as Educational Outreach Coordinator for Ikebana International in Ottawa for over five years, bringing the art of flower arrangement to elementary students in the National Capital area. www.camelliateas.net