Use the “energy of the group,” guided by you the facilitator, to expand how we understand the question.
Kick-start momentum by working as a group to find points of access for the whole class.
The Aim: To help EVERYONE start to identify things within the topic which excite them. To provide lot’s of ways in so that exploration can be owned.
Try the ideas below.
Class Brainstorm: Re-Shape the Question Until it Resonates
“Open up” the question or provocation to help pupils own it. Turn the question upside down, inside out, and examine it from all angles. Don’t assume anything without questioning it.
“How Much Does A Cloud Weigh?” might become:
How heavy is a cloud to YOU?
How heavy is THAT cloud?
How does it feel to carry a cloud?
Could you hold that cloud?
How LIGHT is a cloud?
How does that heavy cloud make you feel?
How do YOU experience CLOUD?
What is cloud?
Group: Mindmap
Use a group discussion as a stimulus for creating individual mindmaps. Start by asking questions to “open the theme” and then ask further questions to encourage pupils to explore ideas which emerge. Enable pupil’s to think like a “fern fractal” and keep pushing the exploration verbally, the children creating a mindmap as you go. Give them time between explorations to write notes and time at the tend to use a highlighter to emphasis ideas which feel exciting to them.
Be creative and experimental, not just with your thoughts but with your environment. How does having different music playing in the background affect outcomes. How does the shape and size of the paper affect the shape of thoughts?
Guided Activity: Practical Ice-Breaker
Sometimes the only way to kick-start momentum is to get your hands dirty. Turn the classroom into a “lab” and use group ice-breaker and warm-up activities as a way to get pupils to start making marks in their sketchbook, OR making marks with “things”. The boundaries set by the activities will offer a structure from which to work, but by inviting pupil’s to do something outside of the expected you’ll be helping them take on new ideas and start to think more creatively.
Take a look at how you can adapt the following activities to fit your question, theme or provocation. Remember you don’t have to make every sketchbook activity directly relate to your topic – sometimes throwing “spanners in the works” can shift and refresh thinking, and ideas and experiences generated will feed through the sketchbook work.
Thinking Through Making
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Inventing
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This is a sample of a resource created by UK Charity AccessArt. We have over 1500 resources to help develop and inspire your creative thinking, practice and teaching.
AccessArt welcomes artists, educators, teachers and parents both in the UK and overseas.
We believe everyone has the right to be creative and by working together and sharing ideas we can enable everyone to reach their creative potential.
The AccessArt Sketchbook Journey is a series of resources designed to help teachers, pupils and learners of all ages navigate their way towards a greater understanding and experience of how sketchbooks can develop our creativity. Paula Briggs, Co-founder and Director of AccessArt explains the thinking behind the project.
AccessArt has been an advocate of the use of sketchbooks as a tool to nurture creativity for many years. Our aim is to enable as many teachers and facilitators as possible (including non-specialist teachers) to feel able to explore the use of sketchbooks with their pupils.
For over 20 years AccessArt has been asking the question:
What kind of mechanisms do artists use to enable their creativity to flourish?
The answers to that question contain clues; clues that might suggest to us new ways we can enable creativity in children and teenagers.
One of the ways many adults develop their creativity is through the use of sketchbooks, and we see that in schools where sketchbook use thrives, creativity thrives too.
The AccessArt Sketchbook Journey aims to share sketchbook knowledge and experience through the following steps:
Step 1: Understand. What is a sketchbook? What happen’s inside a sketchbook? Let’s lift the lid and better understand the potential.
Step 2: Practice & Explore. Make time for sketchbooks and exploresketchbook activities. Experience what a sketchbook journey might look like.
Step 3: Reflect & Discuss. Use sketchbooks as an opportunity to understand more about our creativity, and as a tool for sharing the creativity journey.
Step 4: See Sketchbooks in Action. Be inspired by the sketchbooks of artists, teachers and children.
Throughout all the above stages, the journey for teachers is simple:
We give permission. We show pupils what sketchbooks can be in the widest sense, and we give permission for pupils to embrace that potential in an aspirational way.
We create opportunity for pupils to practice sketchbook skills and explore exciting projects
We nurture ownership, by reminding pupils that they can take control of their journey in and through their sketchbooks.
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