Since 8th graders made ceramic hand sculptures earlier in the semester and wanted to make something functional, I told them I would make sure they got the chance before the end of the class! The students had a day to research and find examples of pottery that fit into 3 categories: functional, decorative, and sculptural. I said functional pottery might have cool glaze, but is pretty simple, decorative has more design work added to it like carving, underglaze painting, stamping, etc., and sculptural has sculpted elements. After some initial confusion on which category to put each chosen image in, the students had some inspiration to design their own projects.
A couple students made slumped bowls.
I have a mug template that is a pretty nice size and involves only a slab-rolled rectangle and a circle made with a cookie cutter and many students chose that base.
Some students made handles, some left their cups plain.
Sgraffito is one of my all time favorite techniques so I was excited to have some students give it a try!
 |
| Bowl on a pedestal with tree pillars. Layered glazes inside the bowl. |
The students could make any type of functional pottery, they just had to think about their designs and get a plan approved. This year I think I found a pretty good balance between having open-ended but still structured lessons with choice-based projects in between.
I've struggled the most with finding the right balance between structure and freedom in my middle school classes out of all PreK-12 and I'm hoping this structure continues to work well with my 7th graders who will be have art 2nd semester.
No comments:
Post a Comment