Assessment Rubric

Student Reflection (Oral Discussion)

How do artists use lines in art?

How have you used lines in your artwork?

How is your work like an artist’s?

Submitted by Kathleen Arola UNIT: Line Lesson: Starch Lines - Manipulative Grade level: Kindergarten Kathleen has used this lesson with kindergarten and first grade. An extension to this lesson would be to do a crayon rubbing print (when dry). Paint the negative spaces of the print with watercolors (crayon resist). Use Kandinsky or Klee for inspiration. The modifications she made are as follows:

(click for larger image)

1. I skipped showing masterworks during this lesson to save time since it's a messy studio session and needs clean-up time.

2. I found it important to pass out yarn and allow exploratory time with students bending the yarn into designs on the table top first (without starch). We talked about making lines go side to side, up and down, across each other and curved.

3. I also selected three cool colored yarns and cut each color in a different length for variety. I discussed both of these concepts with the children. We talked about making their cool colored yarns look like water. I think comparing the colors to water made it less of a foreign idea to dip them into the starch later. (Maybe use an art print of water with waves as inspiration - See Homer's Gulf Stream). Note: White yarn on black might be a nice choice, too - for contrast.

4. The lesson was written to use two or three pieces of yarn, but I opted for more pieces that were probably shorter than the lesson's author used. Mine were approximately 2", 4", 6".

5. I provided black construction paper and told students that if the starch and paper made black marks on their hands that they would wash off later. I also found it important to tell students not to wash hands until I told them the activity was over. Otherwise, there would be students at the sink after each piece of yarn was placed on their paper.

6. Students put their name in yellow crayon on their papers before starting with the starch (Jeryl Hollingsworth has suggested putting names on the paper for kindergarten students ahead of time since many can not write their names)

7. I showed them how to carefully press down on the yarn, and I also told them if the whole piece of yarn didn't go swimming in the starch, it wouldn't stick to the paper when it dried.

8. For students who finished "early", I had them dip a finger in the starch and "paint" over their lines with a topcoat of starch.

9. Finished pictures were set to dry on a large piece of craft paper on the floor. Initially I tried using drying racks, but the weight of the yarn and soggy wet paper made the papers fall and the yarn come off. They dried overnight. The starch dries clear.

Reflections:

This is a process oriented project. They key that really clicked the lesson into place for me and my students was when I added the step of experimenting with yarn lines on the tabletop first before the actual activity. The tabletop became their rough draft sketchbook of ideas, which helped them be more successful and comfortable with the media when they did the final project.