Arts Academy Revitalization Action Team

Arts Academy Meeting Notes, Apr. 11, 2007

April 11, 2007 at 1:10 pm | In Minutes |

Summary:

Meeting adjourned at 2:20 p.m.

Next meeting: Monday, 4/23 at 1:40 in the Music Room

We’ve decided to offer students an options sheet of projects to pick from that use material from the writing sessions. This will be distributed on Monday, 4/23 at a hallway meeting.

Everyone should send Lisa a project that you would like your students to do. Along with the product description, please include "preparation notes" to help students get started thinking about the product they will be creating. Students may decide to do a project in another discipline.

I started a list of comments on how the project is going here.

Present:

• Vicky Stubbs
• Bo Hewey
• Phil Divinsky
• Lisa Hicks
• Dave Nichols
• Val Green
• Lisa DiFranza
• Jane Krasnow
• Diane Manzi
• Dave Beane

Full Notes (paraphrased):

Commercial Art, Dance & Music had sessions today. Diane reported that her students were very resistant to doing a project when they don’t know what the expected outcome is. Later Vicky agreed that the project seems foolish to her students.

Since we spent some time discussing what we would do differently next year, I’m listing those items here.

Lisa D: we’re trying to cover a lot of students in a short amount of time, and we’re also trying to respond to this literacy mandate. We need to make a decision, and either go with just a writing experience or start relating it to the content area. Some weeks ago we made a choice and decided to work with a bigger group of students and not make it a product-oriented experience. We shouldn’t try to do a huge project now because we don’t have time to do a good job.

We agreed that we need to take a careful next step because we don’t want students to think of this as the worst project of the year. Many of our students are resistant to the project (not all).

We ultimately decided that we will provide students with a list of possible "products" or "projects" and ask students to choose, with the option to write in a project that’s not on the list. All products should include a writing component, whether that is an artist’s statement or whether the actual writing is incorporated into a performance or work.

Everyone should send Lisa a project that you would like your students to do. Valerie will concentrate on having her students create written content for projects, because it’s extremely difficult to incorporate this project into Java Programming. Along with the product description, please include "preparation notes" to help students get started thinking about the product they will be creating. Students may decide to do a project in a different discipline, so we need to be prepared to schedule that.

We will distribute the "product/option sheets" on Monday, 4/23, at a hallway meeting, along with whatever content we can get from students before break. Content received after break will be incorporated as "late-breaking news".

On Wednesday, 4/25, we will start having "workshop Wednesdays" when class time will be spent working on the products students have chosen to do. Lisa will float among classes to check on progress and talk to students. Commercial Art will probably not start to do workshops until after the Art Show (April 26), and Fashion won’t start until after the Fashion Show (May 3). Web Programming and Video Tech will skip their second workshop and start working on the product selection instead.

On Wednesday, 4/25, we will meet and decide who wants to also have class workshops on Mondays until PATHSFest. Web and Video want to give presentations at PATHSFest that are not related to the HOME project.

Proposed schedule:

Date	8:30 - 9:15	9:15 - 10:00	11:30 - 12:15	12:15 - 1:00
4/23 (Mon)	Hallway meeting	talk about options in class	Hallway meeting	talk about options in class
4/25 (Wed)	Workshops (project choices)	Workshops (project choices)	Workshops (project choices)	Workshops (project choices)
4/30 (Mon)	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
5/2 (Wed)	Workshops Graphic Arts T Shirt demo	Workshops	Workshops Graphic Arts T Shirt demo	Workshops
5/7 (Mon)	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
5/9 (Wed)	Workshops	Workshops	Workshops	Workshops
5/14 (Mon)	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
5/15 (Tue)	Workshops	Workshops	Workshops	Workshops
5/16 (Wed)	Awards Day - no workshops	Awards Day - no workshops	Awards Day - no workshops	Awards Day - no workshops
5/21 (Mon)	PATHSFEST Setup	PATHSFEST Setup	PATHSFEST Setup	PATHSFEST Setup