OKLAHOMA ALLIANCE
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ARTS EDUCATION
Excellence Through Arts
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Creative Project Descriptions
Twenty First Century Learning Communities
Creativity Basics: Exploring the Imagination
Learning Community: Exploring Creativity in Filmmaking, facilitated by Clifton Raphael (documentary film maker and arts educator in the Jenks Public Schools)
The four seniors in my Advanced Documentary Film class will join me in exploring the question, What is creativity in filmmaking? We will explore the importance of technical excellence in creativity and how documentary films can be creatively structured and how their stories can be creatively told. The Root-Bernsteins have defined creativity in terms of problem solving, so we will also explore how creative filmmaking can be considered a form of problem solving—what problem(s) are we trying to solve, and what strategies have we each discovered or developed for solving these problems? With our leadership workshop’s Tiny Tales exercise in mind, I will also pursue with my students the importance of getting to the essence of a story and how we determine what that essence is in the first place.
I plan to film an hour-long discussion involving all group participants. Beforehand, I will ask them to think of examples of creative problem-solving in films they’ve made. But I am also hoping that, as the discussion evolves, the participants will play off each other and develop new insights regarding creativity as it applies to both their own and their fellow students’ work.”
Learning Community: Exploring the Who, What, Where, When, How and Why of Creativity, facilitated by Beverly Wissen (visual artist and arts educator in the Tulsa Public Schools, Booker T. Washington High School)
Students will apply to be part of a three month exploration of creativity relating to who, what, where, when, how and why. We will meet weekly after school to discuss and create. Participants will be expected to create a presentation at the end of the study that illustrates their individual responses to each question. The concept of BOOK MAKING will be the basis of each presentation.
Learning Community: “Mission: Composition”
Participants: 286 Fifth Graders at Jenks West Intermediate, Jenks Public Schools
facilitated by D’Ann Hargrove, Vocal Music Teacher at Jenks West Intermediate
Students will examine the creative process utilizing the “Thirteen Thinking Tools” that Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein characterize as the basis of creative thought in their book, Sparks of Genius.
Participants will document their ideas from theory to application as they employ the music rondo form as a vehicle for discussion, creation, formulation, and production. Their individual and cumulative composition efforts will culminate in a multi-disciplinary performance piece that will include vocal music, instrumental accompaniment, body percussion, visual art, and movement.
Examples of the students’ creative work will be showcased in both live and video performances in March 2010 to coincide with the MENC (The National Association for Music Education) “Music In Our Schools Month.” The product of the creativity learning community will correspond with this year’s MOISM theme, “Just Imagine…!”
Learning Community: “A Creative Process”
Participants: First Seminar Students, University of Tulsa,
facilitated by Chuck Tomlins, Professor of Art, Henry Kendall College of Arts and Sciences, University of Tulsa
Students will gather information from the seven Leonardo da Vinci Principles taken from his notebooks and the Thirteen Thinking Tools presented in the Root-Bernstein’s book, Sparks of Genius. Explorations will be made into an integrated approach to Creative Thinking, utilizing the notion that learning how to think creatively in one discipline will allow that process to be understood and acted upon in other disciplines. Skills that are “new” to the student will emerge, requiring research with an open mind, as well as leaps of “faith” into areas, subjects and disciplines that will make the “familiar strange and the strange familiar.”
OBJECTIVES
1. Obtain a high level of creative thought awareness through “creative thinking exercises” and demonstrate the ability to transfer that awareness into different disciplines, and creatively express oneself in those disciplines.
2. Develop an understanding and appreciation of the statement, “...rather to see a spectacular, innovative failed project than a tightly developed successful one.”
3.Create original written compositions, supported with visual, aural and performance work based upon notions taken from the course required books, outside readings, other “literary” sources and class discussions.
4. Maintain regular entries into workbooks (a visual journal and the Leonardo da Vinci “Workbook”), which are used to record:
a.Thoughts while in class.
b.All assignment notes.
c.All creative endeavors, revelations, reflections, insights, doodles, discussions, drawings and designs.
5. At the end of the course, a group project, involving the creation of a “new and different world” (land) will be developed along the lines of Abbott’s Flatland. A “skit” (performance) will be presented that demonstrates the “culture” that each group has created.
Learning Community: Exploring the Creative Process by Sparking the Genius Within, facilitated by Jennifer Dix Brown (visual artist and arts educator in the Tulsa Public Schools, Booker T. Washington High School)
My Learning Community will consist of 8th grade students from Kipp who presently have no visual Art courses offered. Research shows students who are exposed to the arts on a yearly basis perform better on standardized tests than those who have not been exposed. Using creativity exercises along with the development of understanding the Elements of Design, the students will create a number of pieces of artwork. I will meet with them on most Thursdays for 1 hour over the next 3 months. In late March, we will have an “Opening” where the students work will be displayed, students and parents can attend. Students will develop a creative way to impart/discuss some of the creative process(es) they utilized.
Learning Community: Exploring the Who, What, Where, When, How and Why of Creativity, facilitated by Bob Curtis (visual artist , Oklahoma City)
We (10 to 12 elementary art educators in the Oklahoma City metro area and myself) will meet to explore new ways of thinking, creativity and problem-solving using the book, Sparks of Genius by Michele and Bob Root-Bernstein. During this January through May learning time, we will keep written/visual journeys of our explorations, immerse ourselves in the multiple thinking strategies illustrated in Sparks of Genius, and use our explorations to create lessons for students that stimulate creative thinking and action and help students develop and understand their processes for creativity.
Learning Community: Creating Physiological Archetypes from Acting, facilitated by Julie Tattershall (Director, Heller Theatre, Tulsa, Oklahoma)
We The cast of “Good Woman of Setzuan" will explore ways to create stories with their characters and also using their own lives as a back drop for larger political themes. The process will include going from a realistically written story to making it into a fable with similar archetypes. The project starts at the beginning of March and ends with the performances of “Good Woman of Setzuan” by Bertolt Brecht, trans. by Eric Bentley in May. Cast will discuss their roles and process with the audience during the talk-back discussions on Friday nights at Heller Theatre.
Learning Community: Night of the Arts: Music of the World, facilitated by Connie Baker (Elementary Music Educator), Carma Branscum (Physical Education Teacher), and Megan Bayer (Elementary Art Education), Yukon Public Schools
Shedeck Elementary (in Yukon, Oklahoma) will be celebrating "Night of the Arts: Music of the World" in January, 2010. Three grade levels, 3rd-5th grades, are collaborating efforts to create the musical. Students will be guided by the music educator in pronunciation of words from six countries: Palestine, Korea, Tahiti, Puerto Rico, USA, and Uganda. With the guidance of the project team leaders, students will explore the process of creativity and develop movement and speaking sections to be incorporated in the musical. Movement exploration will be a key ingredient in the choreography for the musical. Student choreographers and student scene writers will be noted in the musical's printed programs.
Art students in the three grade levels will also explore the creative process and develop their own depictions of artwork from the countries represented in the musical. Representing Korea, students will create Korean crowns; representing Palestine, students will create rugs; and to represent Uganda, African masks will be created. An art exhibit will be displayed in the front entrance in the auditorium where the musical will be held. Parents and guests will be able to view the beautiful creations made by students involved in the project, again, from grades 3rd-5th.
Learning Community: Creating New Ideas, facilitated by Glen Henry (Arts Education Director, Oklahoma State Department of Education), Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
This learning community (5-10 participants) will meet to explore new ways of thinking about creativity using the book, The Element by Sir Ken Robinson. During the February through May time frame, we will immerse ourselves in explorations of the diversity of creativity and other ideas in The Element. We will use our discussions to stimulate our understanding of creativity in order to assist in the development and understanding of the process of creativity as it relates to the creation of new ideas
Learning Community: Type and Image: Explorations in Drawing and Photography, facilitated by Teresa Valero (Art Professor, University of Tulsa)
The students and I will use the elements of typography (starting with the alphabet and moving to paragraphs, phrases, words, syllables, letters, etc.) in ways that transcend the utilitarian, the literal, and the pre-packaged, and develop typographic settings for a text that gives form to metaphoric implications or connotations through compositional arrangement, juxtaposition, and typographic manipulation. Through this process we will exercise various modes of critical thinking, mind mapping, and formal play in an effort to find new meaning and shape for a given text. We’ll explore the alphabet with both photography and drawing. Since creativity is problem solving, the goal is for the students to look at type in a new way and to be aware of its possibilities.