About the lesson
In this lesson, we continued to expand on the brainstorming and storytelling techniques from the previous lessons. Students created a storyboard, and were evaluated on the inclusion of a character, setting, and working in sequential order. Storytelling is an essential way to communicate and share personal experiences and creativity. Students were provided a prompt to use as a starting point as we pushed them to think about how to use their imagination and expand upon the prompt with their own unique style and personality.
Essential Understandings
Outcomes
Students will be able to:
1. After a short Introduction on storyboards, students will be able to connect with each other at table groups and share ideas that involve a story by demonstrating their ability to discuss together, follow classroom etiquette, and utilize brainstorming techniques.
2.. After brainstorming about a couple possible stories, students will be able to create a drawing for each part of the story in a sequential order, shown by a successful structure utilizing character and setting to configure a storyboard that represents their own interpretation of the prompt or own idea.
3. Sharing their artwork, students will be able to reflect on their piece with each other; by presenting their piece to their table group, discussing their illustrations and creative decisions.
Skills
To start the creative process, the teachers introduced the concept of storyboards and demonstrated with real world examples. This provided an immediate hook, and a sense of relevance which connected them to other stories they like or have seen recently. Through expansion on the first lesson, and techniques they have learned, the students expanded on the prompt and created new ideas of their own. These ideas followed a format that addressed sequential order, and the inclusion of a character and setting.
The Prompt:
After teachers shared the project guidelines and the prompt, students brainstormed with different characters and inspirations. They reflected on the lesson about book covers, the new examples of storyboards, and applied their previous learning to the current project’s prompt.
Through this process the students created illustrations and a story that embodied their unique personalities while abiding by the lesson's evaluated standards.
In this lesson, we continued to expand on the brainstorming and storytelling techniques from the previous lessons. Students created a storyboard, and were evaluated on the inclusion of a character, setting, and working in sequential order. Storytelling is an essential way to communicate and share personal experiences and creativity. Students were provided a prompt to use as a starting point as we pushed them to think about how to use their imagination and expand upon the prompt with their own unique style and personality.
Essential Understandings
- Artists/designers use art to tell stories, memories, and experiences.
- Artists/designers use critical thinking and organizational techniques to create artwork.
- Artists/designers express and explore their own creative identity through art.
- Artists/designers formulate new ideas through the process that enhance their artwork.
Outcomes
Students will be able to:
1. After a short Introduction on storyboards, students will be able to connect with each other at table groups and share ideas that involve a story by demonstrating their ability to discuss together, follow classroom etiquette, and utilize brainstorming techniques.
2.. After brainstorming about a couple possible stories, students will be able to create a drawing for each part of the story in a sequential order, shown by a successful structure utilizing character and setting to configure a storyboard that represents their own interpretation of the prompt or own idea.
3. Sharing their artwork, students will be able to reflect on their piece with each other; by presenting their piece to their table group, discussing their illustrations and creative decisions.
Skills
- Critical thinking and organizational techniques
- Storyboard techniques
- Creative problem solving
- Expansion of ideas from a prompt
- Establishing a sense of comfort with the studio, materials, staff, and peers
- Drawing Techniques
- Critique Etiquette
To start the creative process, the teachers introduced the concept of storyboards and demonstrated with real world examples. This provided an immediate hook, and a sense of relevance which connected them to other stories they like or have seen recently. Through expansion on the first lesson, and techniques they have learned, the students expanded on the prompt and created new ideas of their own. These ideas followed a format that addressed sequential order, and the inclusion of a character and setting.
The Prompt:
- You put your Halloween candy in a secret hiding place… but when you come back later to eat some, it is gone! What happened to your candy?!?
After teachers shared the project guidelines and the prompt, students brainstormed with different characters and inspirations. They reflected on the lesson about book covers, the new examples of storyboards, and applied their previous learning to the current project’s prompt.
Through this process the students created illustrations and a story that embodied their unique personalities while abiding by the lesson's evaluated standards.
Above, the student utilized a mixture of representational figures with symbolism and abstraction. There was no text (which was not a requirement), he instead told the story entirely with imagery, focusing on expressions to relay the conflict. He was very excited to share his work, "My story is scary, gross, and funny!" he said, "I couldn't find my candy because my dog ate it, so I reached inside into his tummy and took it back." I asked him if his dog was okay after all that, and if he could create a third panel to meet the evaluated standards of completing a sequential story with 3 parts, including: a beginning, middle, and end. He said, "that is what I am working on next, I want to show that me and my dog are still good friends."
Some students chose to create elaborate narratives, sometimes beginning with the text and creating illustrations for their stories after. This demonstrated how many of the students resolve problems through story telling differently.
Some of the students already had a sensibility for their personal taste in artistic style and imagery. This student chose to tell their story through imagery alone and then describe to me what was happening. "I'm sleeping in bed. My friends come and take it. I lock it in my drawer, but it turns out it was my mom who was taking it. She can get in my drawer and ate it."
Some students, opted to begin writing first in the brainstorming process. Often these written ideas were accompanied by illustrations and symbolic imagery near the bottom of the page. When the student discussed her process with me it gave insight into how ideas are conceived, depending on the student, their learning type, and developmental stage, some prefer to communicate with imagery, symbols, and spoken word while others were more inclined to organize their thoughts through writing.
Many students were inspired by each other's stories. Instead of her candy being stolen by her dog, this students wrote and illustrated a similar scenario with her cat as the antagonist. This student even elected to split her first two pages into panels, to show more stages of progression in her story through the illustrations. She also chose to use comic style thought and world bubbles instead of a traditional text box or narrative paragraph at the top of the page. When asked about this creative decision she explained, "I wanted to try to do it like comics after you showed us Calvin and Hobbes."
As I walked around the room I noticed how students were picking up many different ways to combine the text with their illustrations. This student combined narrative text boxes, with word bubbles, illustrations, and symbolic imagery to depict the overall mood of the story. Again the premise was similar to some of the other students who developed the prompt to include their pets as part of the conflict. What this student did that the other students had not, was to share factual information that, "if dogs eat candy they will probably get sick and can die." She shared this information with her table members and let them know to be careful not to let their dogs eat the candy.