Saturday Art Class Unit Plans
IPTS Standard 2 – Content Area and Pedagogical Knowledge: The competent teacher has in-depth understanding of content area knowledge that includes central concepts, methods of inquiry, structures of the disciplines, and content area literacy. The teacher creates meaningful learning experiences for each student based upon interactions among content area and pedagogical knowledge, and evidence-based practice.
IPTS Standard 8 – Collaborative Relationships: The competent teacher builds and maintains collaborative relationships to foster cognitive, linguistic, physical, and social and emotional development. This teacher works as a team with professional colleagues, students, parents or guardians, and community members.
Unit Plan (Weeks 1-3)
Description: This is a three-lesson 7th and 8th grade level unit plan about color theory and how it relates to emotion and music. This unit was the first to be taught during Illinois State University’s five-week Saturday art class program. The unit includes content on color theory and related artists. To begin the unit, students create a colored emotion chart, and the big project of the unit is a musical color painting that expands off the colored emotion chart.
Rationale: The purpose of this unit is to have students review color relations and then derive personal meaning from color using emotions and music. Deriving personal meaning from color strengthens an artist in how it allows them to use color in art in purposeful ways. When finished with this unit, students will be proficient in another method of adding meaning and purpose to their own artworks.
Teacher Examples
Colored Emotion Chart Example
Musical Color Painting Example
Color Theory, Emotion, and Music Unit Plan (Weeks 1-3)
Student Examples
Colored Emotion Chart Examples
Musical Color Painting Examples
Unit Plan (Weeks 4-5)
Description: This is a two-lesson 1st grade level unit plan about movement and motion in art. This unit was the second to be taught during Illinois State University’s five-week Saturday art class program. This unit includes content on Futurism and animation, and how the ideas of movement in Futurism contributed to today’s motion art of animation. This unit also includes content on multiple Futurist artists and animators. The first lesson of this unit involves creating a rubbing drawing to explore how movement can be applied to artistic practices. The second and final lesson of this unit involves creating a flipbook to understand the foundational process of animation and to see how repeated imagery creates motion in art.
Movement and Motion in Art Unit Plan (Weeks 4-5)
Rationale: The purpose of this unit is to have students learn about how past art practices (Futurism) have contributed to modern-day art practices (animation) and how both Futurism and animation have the same underlying idea of movement and motion in art. Learning about past movements inspires new creations and teaches students about how evident change is and will continue to be. The art of today will one day be art history, and the student artists of today will become part of that history.
Teacher Examples
Rubbing Drawing Example
Flipbook Example
Student Examples
Rubbing Drawing Examples
Flipbook Examples
Saturday Art Class Classroom Set-Up Documentation
IPTS Standard 4 – Learning Environment: The competent teacher structures a safe and healthy learning environment that facilitates cultural and linguistic responsiveness, emotional well-being, self-efficacy, positive social interaction, mutual respect, active engagement, academic risk-taking, self-motivation, and personal goal setting. This includes a virtual environment and any learning aids used within a Google Drive.
7D: Understands how to organize the instructional environment to maximize students’ learning.
Description: Classroom set up for Illinois State University’s five-week Saturday art class program involved both student and Covid-19 considerations. My first classroom for my first unit was organized to appeal to middle-school students, while my second classroom for my second unit was set up to appeal to younger students. My first classroom had shared supplies set up at the front of the classroom and my second classroom had individual supplies for each student. Both of my classrooms were set up to accommodate plenty of space between each student, as well as enough space for teachers to work one-on-one with students when needed.
Weeks 1-3 Photos
Rationale: Setting up classrooms specific to age groups and student needs is key to producing a productive and safe learning environment. Having shared supplies for my middle-school students was appropriate because they were at an age where waiting and taking-turns was second nature to them. Not all younger students are content with waiting and want equal items to that of their peers, so having individual sets of supplies for each student was effective for my younger students. Installing safety precautions such as leaving wide spaces between students is most important because students’ health and safety are the main priorities for a teacher.
Weeks 4-5 Photos
Professionalism, Advocacy, and Leadership: PAL 1’s
IPTS Standard 9 – Professionalism, Leadership, and Advocacy: The competent teacher is an ethical and reflective practitioner who exhibits professionalism, provides leadership in the learning community, and advocates for students, parents or guardians, and the profession.
Cross Platform Lecture: Rick Valicenti
Description: For a PAL 1, I attended a lecture given by Rick Valicenti about his work and processes. Rick Valicenti is a highly awarded graphic designer who has created a wide variety of projects for many clients. Many of his projects focus on community and world betterment. Rick Valicenti gave this lecture at University Galleries in October of 2021.
Rationale: Learning about other artists is very important because it inspires and teaches new ways of creating. Hearing from Rick Valicenti was inspiring because of how much he has accomplished, but also because of how meaningful his work is. His devotion to addressing ideas of community and topics such as sustainability adds purpose to his work and speaks volumes to his audience. Incorporating meaning in art is one of the most important things an artist can do.
Visiting Artist Program: Rachel Bujalski
Description: For a PAL 1, I attended a lecture given by Rachel Bujalski. Rachel Bujalski is a professional photographer. Her primary purpose as an artist is to document and tell stories through photographs. Illinois State University’s Visiting Artist Program had Rachel Bujalski share her photo series on the topic of homelessness in November of 2021.
Rationale: Learning about the variety of topics that artists choose to address in their art inspires conversation and furthers artmaking. By creating her photo series on homelessness, Rachel Bujalski draws attention to some of the realities that people all over the world experience. It is good for artists to highlight aspects of society that not everyone acknowledges because it exposes people to the fact that not everyone lives in the same way and that everyone undergoes different challenges.
Professionalism, Advocacy, and Leadership: PAL 2’s
IPTS Standard 9 – Professionalism, Leadership, and Advocacy: The competent teacher is an ethical and reflective practitioner who exhibits professionalism, provides leadership in the learning community, and advocates for students, parents or guardians, and the profession.
Heartland Community College Painting Class
Description: For a PAL 2, I taught a virtual adult acrylic painting class through Heartland Community College. The class was open to anyone 21 or over as it was a wine and paint class. The class consisted of 7 people, and I taught how to paint a sunflower. I conducted the class over Zoom and prepped a lesson plan and teacher example beforehand.
Rationale: This experience was beneficial to me in how it exposed me to teaching adults and to teaching virtually. I have taught adult classes before at an art studio I work at, but never one of my own creation. This was both exciting and slightly overwhelming due to the varied painting experience each class attendee had. Also overwhelming was the fact that I was younger than everyone I was teaching. Prior to this experience, I had never taught a virtual class. I had never used Zoom as a teacher, so adjusting my teaching and figuring out the technological aspects of conducting a Zoom meeting was a valuable and at points, stressful, learning experience.
Perfect Pairing – Paint and Wine Overview and Lesson Plan
How to Make Comics with Ebony Flowers
Description: For a PAL 2, I attended a comics class taught by Ebony Flowers and provided by MoMA. The class was designed for art educators and taught art teachers how to teach comic making to their students. The class taught various exercises that could be assigned to spark creativity and story-making.
Rationale: This experience was beneficial in how it provided excellent teaching tips and art activities. The purpose of the class was not to teach how to create the best comic or to narrate the best story, rather it showed teachers how to spark student interest and use exercises that contribute to comic making. I see myself using the exercises that Ebony Flowers taught. Classes like these are excellent for teachers because of how they expose them to new ways of teaching art.
Exercises