Glenwood City High Day Five

The time had come for me to present an assignment. I was going to do it all by myself, as my co-operating Mrs. Mary Jones was attending Seminar's that week. Mrs. Jones then realized the eight-graders, who I would be teaching, would not have final period art on Wednesday. I re-arranged to Friday prepared my Lesson. I would be teaching observational drawing in one-point perspective to the eighth graders and the introductory class. It was a challenging assignment for that grade level, but I was confident that I could introduce the concept of linear perspective (something that took mankind over a thousand years to understand) in the short time I was given.
I created a visually interesting PowerPoint that introduced the basic terminology several times, in several different ways, for the variety of learning styles of the eight-graders. I also took a photograph of one of the hallways directly outside the art studio. I broke down the necessary steps in order as clearly as I could. I emphasized the importance of convergence and how these points meet at the horizon line, which is also the students eye-level.

I also showed how they can find the stroke width of various architectural elements and define those lines by two points, the vanishing point and horizontal marks they draw up at a consistent size. I was trying to make meaningful connections between one-point perspective's scientific approach to visual understanding and geometries mathematical understanding of the visual world. However, this is difficult when the student's do not understand simple geometric terms such as parallel and perpendicular. Fortunately a dutiful student asked what perpendicular was in the designated question time and I was able to break the geometric vocabulary more. Finally, I showed my example from Jarvis Hall and the Student's were off to draw.

Many of the students did not know how to begin, as they had not drawn from observation before. I had to explain and demonstrate how to begin to many of the students. I did my best to get to every student and by the end of the period all the students had a good start on their drawings.