Revitalizing Old Projects

This semester I decided I needed to breathe some new life into one of my projects I have been teaching awhile. The students have always done well on it, but I wanted to see them think more deeply than they had been. The project was focused on mixed media. At this point in the semester, students had learned how to use many different media in their work, and the mixed media project was meant to help them think past one art material at a time and use several including non-traditional materials like found objects to create a unique composition.

I decided to update this project by providing a new focus for the theme of their piece and adding an inspirational artist to the lesson. I chose Romare Bearden as the artist and personal culture as the focus. I included a reflective essay in the project where students explain how they represented their culture and why they chose the media they used for the piece. Below is my student gallery for the week. I really enjoyed this new twist on an old project.