The Spiral Curriculum

The Spiral Curriculum had so many wonderful lesson ideas. I especially liked the Collaborative Wall Collections. This was a great way to incorporate some of those technical skills required at most lower levels, such as line, shape, negative and positive space, outlines, etc. They are also gaining some graphic design skills-- a great opportunity to discuss commercial art and how powerful symbols are in our visual culture (restroom signs, company logos, street signs, etc.) But more importantly it adds that layer that we always strive to include. The use of symbols is a powerful thing. Students are learning how to conceptualize big ideas and format them into simple and elegant forms. In the example on the site, the students were working with majors events in American History. A topic like this is a great way for students to start synthesizing broad topics and breaking it down into a single representation. What else is wonderful about this lesson is the collaboration aspect. In Walker, we read about postponement of meaning as an artist habit. This is especially true with this assignment. The students are creating their own meaning within their individual work, but once their piece(s) are combined with those of fellow classmates, the juxtaposition and combination create entirely new meanings, or at least expanded meanings.

I really like this idea because you can take symbols into any big idea. Think about the wonderful results if this were done with a social justice theme, or visual culture symbols of ideologies. I'd love to use Luba Lukova as an exemplar artist for social justice. On the Spiral site, she mentions that this lesson could be modified with colored symbols or backgrounds, which could be an affective use of color as symbolic messages. Let's not forget of course Kara Walker. Students could use her storytelling techniques to convey symbols of memory, emotions, identity, etc. This idea could go in a thousand directions.

I love the idea of displaying these along the hallways of the school; it would become a nice interactive piece with the other students and teachers. A display in the classroom might be successful as well, especially if the lesson was expanded upon and additional artwork was added to create more juxtaposition and expansion of meaning.