14 artful ideas for middle school teachers

Teaching Pre K-8, Mar 1996 by Khavaran, Bonnie L

Teaching art in middle school is not quite the same as teaching art in the lower elementary grades.

Around the age of eight, children shift their focus from process to product, with added concern for the appearance of the product. Most often, the desired level of expression surpasses the level of skill. Nevertheless, you can give children the skills they need, and you can do it regardless of your art experience. All it takes is a set of strategies geared to the middle school and a desire to help.

Before we examine those strategies, let's take a brief look at how students in middle school feel about the visual arts.

Naturalism preferred. Overall, middle school students prefer natural looking images rather than the symbolic images of earlier years. Middle school students also tend to be quite critical of their attempts at naturalism. Specifically, they want:

* to be able to show depth

* to plan their compositions

* to draw, paint or sculpt figures that are natural in appearance

* to draw, paint or sculpt facial features in proportion and with detail

* to mix colors that are more complex and natural than the colors commonly found in the paint jar or crayon box

* to be able to use art to express ideas, mood and emotion

* to be able to render subjects that are of personal interest, such as vehicles, animals, robots, landscape, monsters and machines

Helpful suggestions. Here are some approaches that require only a willingness to help your students. These suggestions are derived from my own experience as well as from the experience of other art educators.

1 Present a positive attitude about the visual arts. Your regard for the arts will go a long way towards impressing the kids.

2 Provide a stimulating environment. I have a small Turkish carpet bag that has been used as a cultural example when introducing a unit on weaving. Some lacquered boxes from Russia are seen as containers that are art objects rather than merely utility boxes. A rock collection is stimulating to both the visual and tactile senses. Observing sparkling stones, transparent crystals and dull shale has helped to develop an awareness of how light affects how we see textures. Art prints of work in a variety of media and styles help children expand their notion of what art is.

3 Ask the children what they like about their artwork and what they'd like to low how to do better. They can gently critique their own work as well as identify content that they'd like to learn.

4 Keep a picture file. Sports, geographic, art, architectural and fashion magazines as well as action comics can be helpful resources. For example, children can draw horizon lines and receding lines over architectural photos to identify components of linear perspective. They can also copy simple linear cartoon figures upside down, color match by filling in missing parts of photos, and copy sports and action figures to learn proportion, movement and variety of viewpoints. Stress that they are copying to learn rather than learning to copy.

5 Here are some how-to-draw books that I've found helpful. The Ed Emberly series (published by Little, Brown & Co.) is appealing to children who prefer a cartoonlike approach to drawing. The Lee J. Ames series (published by Doubleday) is attractive to those who are interested in a naturalistic style of drawing. How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way by Stan Lee and John Buscema (Simon & Schuster, 1984) shows the rendering of idealized superhero figures. Having some of these books on hand will help children learn how to draw figures and objects from beginning to end in more than one style.

6 When kids are drawing from nature, encourage them to take time to observe, reflect upon and describe what is seen before they begin to draw.

7 Try a computer graphics software program, if one is available. This will eliminate some of the conceivably tedious aspects of drawing. Also, it helps children learn spatial effects quickly. A software program that allows self-expression is a better choice than a program that is restricted to pre-determined images.

8 If you don't have an art teacher in your school, ask your local art league for help. Art leagues offer many services to the community, such as providing guest speakers and visiting artists.

9 There's usually at least one student with a talent for art in your class. This is the child that other children like to observe and copy from. Chances are, he or she will be pleased to share his or her skills and talents with the other students.

10 Learn something new about art along with your students. If you've wanted to pursue one particular aspect of art, now's the time. Let the kids see how you approach your work.

11 Try approaching photography and video recording as an art form.

12 Use exciting content from your curriculum to inspire art activities. Although you've heard this before, you're in an ideal situation to integrate art with other subjects. For instance, the study of ancient Egypt is an ideal time to make replicas of the jewelry from that historical period. Science fair projects can be integrated with the study of exhibition design by making scale models of the exhibits before actually building them, brushing up on display lettering skills and planning the layout of the information to be presented.