There is nothing quite like a 6th grader who only draws in the corner of their sheet of paper on that first day, I remember starting my student teaching and realizing everyone talking about FILLING THE PAGE. We need to fill the page, people! Fill the composition!
This week, we just started back – new year, new kiddos for the semester. So, I am back at it again, preaching the same old phrase. The great thing is, though, I have really developed a beautiful way of going about it other than just yelling across the room like I used to, thanks to my handy-dandy IB curriculum.
I developed this IB MYP Art Unit Plan specifically for my 6th graders because I only get them for 9 weeks, and after all the testing, assemblies, sick days, and such, our time is limited. So, I wanted a structure for this exploratory class that was broad enough that I could be flexible with my lessons, but at the same time intentional. Another big goal is, of course, to hook them and make sure I catch all the good little art kids to come back to me in 7th and 8th grade and not lose them to drama and digital design! (Although they are great too, of course.)
As I begin to build this unit in ManageBac and narrow down the key concepts, aesthetics immediately jumped out at me. Nowadays, having an aesthetic is a thing for Gen Z, so I started there and jumped into related concepts. Using my reference sheet, I already knew I wanted to use composition, and of course, with this class being exploratory and a big introduction to middle school art, I had to choose PLAY.
My statement of inquiry for this unit plan, with some time, has settled to be:
Compositions could be created through play and the exploration of aesthetics.
Our statement of inquiry is the main idea of our learning journey. So what has worked so wonderfully is that we are able to come back to our SOI constantly throughout the time we are together and remind ourselves of our overall goal.
You may be thinking to yourself, “My 11-year-old will not understand what half those words mean,” and yeah, you’re right. What is so great about these SOIs is that it gives us an opportunity to guide them through some higher-order thinking that, in turn, creates some higher-order creating.
Recently, I have been working on developing new ways of breaking down SOIs with students, and the inquiry worksheet that I pair with this one is one of the most simple and effective I have done. While going through the presentation and breaking down each definition, students are working on putting it in their own words. Then, at the end, they put it all together into their own statement of inquiry. Surprisingly enough, it works out really well. Here are some I took from one of the first groups I did this with; we referred back to their own definitions some days as well, and I found it even more effective.
I encourage students in this class to ask themselves what they find to be beautiful. We dive deep into the elements and principles of art, and we discuss different methods of composition and filling the page like the rules of thirds. We experiment and play with different media like watercolor techniques and printmaking or cardboard sculptures. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with an idea, and we do that! Can you tell that I live and breathe this stuff?
If you feel like this is a IB MYP Art Unit Plan that you could use in your IB classroom, I have it in my TPT store. There you’ll have the PDF directly from Managebac and the accompanying student-facing PowerPoint presentation. Plus, a guided inquiry worksheet for students to interpret the statement of inquiry as you work through it together in both color and black and white.
The information encompasses an in-depth unit planner featuring an aim, statement of inquiry, related concepts, key concepts, global context, inquiry questions (factual, conceptual, and debatable), aligned ATL skills, IB traits, MYP objectives, and South Carolina Arts Objectives (where I teach.) You can easily take this information and adapt it to your classroom needs.
Hopefully, by the end of the 9 weeks, my little 6th grader is a little taller and now creates artwork that fills his page and is a little more willing to take some risks in his art making. As long as we got to play and have some fun along the way, this art teacher is happy. 🙂
-Sarah
