Shadowing- Urban Arts Academy- 3 Hours
The day started by the students doing a warm-up activity in which they looked for hidden cards around the room. The cards had "get-to-know-you" questions on them. When all the cards were found, everyone gathered in a circle and answered the questions on the cards that they had found. This was a simple way to break the ice as well as get their brains moving to prepare for the main event.
The teaching artist today specialized in spoken word. His concentrate mainly seemed to be in poetry writing and reading, but he mentioned that spoken word applies to other art forms such as stand-up comedy and theater. He showed a few examples of talented poets reading their work. The examples contrasted each other--one poem was funny while another poem was serious. Doing this demonstrated that there is not one "way" or "style" to approach this--there is a lot of creative freedom.
Then the students were off to work. Their activity was to make a poem by finding newspaper articles and blacking out certain words, leaving the unmarked words as the poem. I think it was a good idea for the artist to give context and examples as an introduction to the lesson before they started.
When the students were done, they had the chance to read their poems out loud. I believe that art is a form of communication and expression, therefore the chance to share art is always important. The visiting teacher and main instructor each did the activity utilizing the comics section, which was interesting to me as a comic artist and reminded me of something that I'm doing for one of my classes.
The next activity the students did was an exercise in teamwork. They split up into two teams, received notecards, and competed to build a tower that was taller than their opponent's. There were a few rounds, and each round had added restrictions, such as, in the first round nobody was allowed to talk, in the next round one person was allowed to talk but only one person was allowed to use the tape, etc. Having set restrictions like these can enhance creative thinking because it challenges one to work around obstacles and solve problems in less-obvious ways.