THE COURSE
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An Overview: Introduction to Creative Process is a full year studio course, required of all freshmen at Avenues: The World School. In this course, students are asked to consider what they care about and why and to realize their motivations through the disciplines of art, music, and drama respectively. Through this year-long exploration, students access authentic connections to their work, arriving in the spring with a better understanding of what motivates them as creative thinkers and makers.
Whose in the room: 9th grade students arrive with a wide range of interests and curiosities about the world. Our teachers embrace each individual where they're at understanding implicitly that kids need to be recognized and valued for what they have to offer first. Approaching instruction with a differentiated mindset, Creative Process educators create multiple options for students to plug into each assignment and expect final works to look different because each student sees and experiences the world in unique ways.
What it looks like in the art studio: For our 9s, gaining confidence and belief in voice happens gradually so assignments are designed to support artists' growth by building in complexity and rigor over time. For the first 3 terms, students are given assignments that explore an array of fine art materials using What's out there? What does the material do? What will I do with it and why? as the impetus for making. For the fourth and final project, students are asked to determine a unique line of inquiry that is conceptually driven and informed by any combination of materials explored up to that point.
Multiple Ways In: Creative Process artists are presented with multiple ways into the work. For example with a drawing assignment, our Process teachers will share and demonstrate techniques related to 3 drawing practices, study artists who engage with each, have students complete small art challenges related to each method. The focus is on the differences as opposed to the sameness of creative practice. The student will then choose one approach that resonates for them to produce a final, more deeply explored and realized final work.
The Constants. Reflection, Documentation & Presentation: The cornerstone of Introduction to Creative Process is a rigorous reflection and documentation of process. Students understand themselves and their creative choices as a result of cultivating awareness of their experience in the studio. Similar to how assignments are designed, strategies for reflection increase with complexity over time. Our students currently use websites with blog features to house their experience. This digital trail also serves as an excellent resource as 9th grade artists enter their independent project work. Sharing work upon completion is a critical part of the process because it allows artists to understand what people see and how their ideas have been translated. Public sharing can be accomplished in many ways including group critique, presentations that display the arc of the project work, and exhibitions.
What the work "space" looks like: The creative process and this course can exist anywhere so long as the Intellectual and emotional foundations are in place when you're asking students to take risks, explore new materials, experiment and potentially fail. Creative Process educators aim to cultivate a communal, artistic mindset promoting safety first, inclusivity, and respect for one another, as well as tools and materials. If students can believe and adhere to guiding principles the messiness and uncertainty of creativity can flourish.
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