Art Rubrics

In the article, “Developing Criteria Rubics in the Art Classroom”, they gave an excellent and very common example of a rubric making paper mache masks. I found that seeing this example of something that most people are familiar with and have done at some point was a great model for lessons that we may do in the future.

For me personally, I never thought about rubrics in regards to art, I thought it was usually just something that you could be as creative and different as you want with it, but I can see how in a classroom like setting it is important to be able to assess the students learning and knowledge of the content at hand. For me, I love having rubrics and even for something like art it would be helpful for me to see exactly what needs to be done and what is expected of me through a rubric. I think this is important and therefore something that I will also show in my future classroom. 

PIcture Books

When I was younger, reading was a huge hobby of mine. Up until today, picture books are something that I enjoy and have a large collection of.
More than actually reading the words in picture books, my favorite thing to do was look at the pictures and make up my own story. I had read my entire library of books so many times and I had to keep myself entertained somehow! I think this was a big part of helping my imagination and creativity grow because you can look at a picture and come up with a million different ways to explain it.

Also, reading pictures books as a child who is just starting reading can be extremely helpful. It helps the child to link the pictures to the words and certainly does increase their literacy level! It is helpful to use context clues and pictures for them to figure out the words!

Gene Yang's Blog

I found Gene Yang's blog to be extremely interesting and full of tons of links with useful and thoughtful information. The biggest area of interest to me on his blog however was the "Comics" link. There, I found all different types of Comics that promotes art and literature at the same time. This goes off of the idea in my last blog about how comics are an upcoming and common way to promote learning in classrooms, especially for those students who learn visually.

Another thing that really struck me was the song that was on the home page by a middle school student. It was a song about how although we all look different, we are the same and should be treated with the same respect. The song was inspired by "American Born Chinese". It is an extremely inspiring song, especially coming from such a young person.