Allison Schorr, MAT ’17, describes her experience teaching art at Canby High School
Allison’s students at Canby High School learned contour line drawing, graphite shading techniques and colored pencil techniques in a unit on line and value. Each student designed and drew a large-scale postage stamp that included an animal associated with a country.
The project that I have displayed in the library is a summative assessment of a unit covering the elements of art: Line, Shape, and Value. The class is a fundamentals art class, called “Art Survey.” It a prerequisite at Canby High School for any student who wishes to take advanced art courses. Prior to this assignment, the students learned about contour line, observational drawing, negative space, ways of creating value, and colored pencil techniques.
It was enjoyable to see students coming up with their own ideas, and taking pride in their work. I particularly enjoyed seeing how meaningful the project was to students who chose to base their stamp on the country of their origin. The final product showed their connection to the subject and pride in their personal heritage.
In this assignment, students were instructed to create a postage stamp with a central image of an animal for any country of their choosing. The stamp must contain cultural influences relating to the country they selected, as well as a animal that is rendered three dimensional by using value changes in color. The assignment was successful in pulling together prior learning, and also allowing students freedom of choice.
