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Have thoroughly enjoyed all discussions on this listserv., in particular the
most recent on sketchbooks/journals
The sketchbook/journals situation arose for me last year through teaching
IB. As many of you know, the course requires a research workbook where the
students document the process of their works, along with illustrations,
research and other experimental work.
When they get into it they seem to really enjoy doing the research workbook,
so I decided to experiment and try doing something similar with the other
non IB classes. We changed the name of the sketchbooks to Visual Journals
and I regularly allowed some class time to work on them.
Well after years of struggling to get the students to do their sketchbook
assignments, this was no struggle at all - they loved them. It was like
going from night to day, quite a turn around. They always remembered to
bring them to class (not like the sketchbooks which seemed to mysteriously
disappear half way through the quarter) They drew, painted, wrote, cut,
pasted, colored in any mediums they wished. They were so proud of them and
often completed two before the end of the quarter.
Now it's time to look back and reflect on this amazing change in attitude
from the students. It seems somehow that the Visual Journal allowed them to
express themselves more creatively, there was more freedom and much less
stress on skills. Once they felt successful with their creativity they
wanted to improve their skill level, it came naturally. So at the end of
the year we have ended up doing observational drawing (still life) as a last
project. They have taken this assignment quite seriously and now seem to
enjoy so much more, the challenge of producing a really good drawing.
It's been an interesting year shifting the balance in creativity/skills, not
only in the sketchbooks but in the coursework in general. I wasn't sure how
the work would go as it felt like sailing in unchartered waters. For years
I had mostly stressed skills first.
Well the end of year art show seemed to reflect the change and many comments
were received on how much more creative the student's work appeared to be.
So with some further fine tuning, we will continue to search for that
perfect balance between skill and creativity next year.
Thanks for sharing all your ideas on this listserv, I always appreciate your
professional generosity, it's been very inspirational.

Jan

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