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Dana & Timothy: Project Title
Grade Level(s) and Subject(s): 8th- grade Humanities
Grade Level(s) and Subject(s): 8th- grade Humanities
Big Idea: Power and Possibility
Big Idea: Power and Possibility
Inquiry Question: How is the future depicted via the arts, when students are given the agency to create new possibilities?
Inquiry Question: How is the future depicted via the arts, when students are given the agency to create new possibilities?
Describe your project. Over the Spring of 2022, 8th Grade Humanities students at Telpochcalli School in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, wondered about the future as it relates to Power and Possibility. They did this by engaging in exercises such as: guided meditations where they met their future selves, comic book story creation on what it might be like to explore futuristic worlds, poetry writing about the future, role play, writing letters to the future, and wondering what contemporary objects might look like to people from the future, exploring messaging by creating postcards for the future, and expressing their hopes and dreams for the very near future.
Describe your project. Over the Spring of 2022, 8th Grade Humanities students at Telpochcalli School in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, wondered about the future as it relates to Power and Possibility. They did this by engaging in exercises such as: guided meditations where they met their future selves, comic book story creation on what it might be like to explore futuristic worlds, poetry writing about the future, role play, writing letters to the future, and wondering what contemporary objects might look like to people from the future, exploring messaging by creating postcards for the future, and expressing their hopes and dreams for the very near future.
What references or influences did you draw from when creating your project? What changed this year from past CAPE projects? Students journaled regularly in class about the exercises and their feelings around the future and then compiled these images in this book based on Kimberly Drew and Jenna Worthham’s book, Black Futures. As in Drew and Wothham’s book, this book similarly brings together a collection of work: images, photos, writings, poetry, stories, memes, etc. to tell of the imaginative work that creators are making today.
What references or influences did you draw from when creating your project? What changed this year from past CAPE projects? Students journaled regularly in class about the exercises and their feelings around the future and then compiled these images in this book based on Kimberly Drew and Jenna Worthham’s book, Black Futures. As in Drew and Wothham’s book, this book similarly brings together a collection of work: images, photos, writings, poetry, stories, memes, etc. to tell of the imaginative work that creators are making today.
Describe how inquiry was introduced to your students.
Describe how inquiry was introduced to your students.
On the first day of the residency we asked students about the future and talked about what they imagine. Each lesson we prompted students to think about and share in different wats. We shared some examples of future thinking and afro-futurism. We also asked students to continue to look at and reflect on their own work. The inquiry was both the future, but also the reflection on curation and what to include.
Choose 1 academic learning standard and 1 arts learning standard. Describe how it was incorporated into your project.
Choose 1 academic learning standard and 1 arts learning standard. Describe how it was incorporated into your project.
Students wrote narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective techniques, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. (W.8.3). Students crafted comics that incorporated their own fantasies about the future. Example Prompt: What worlds might they explore if their spaceship crash-landed onto a planet whose population was years ahead of our own?
Future story telling was a big part of the daily prompts, activities, and thinking. We used a variety of different structures from mediation, team work, writing, and comics.
Future story telling was a big part of the daily prompts, activities, and thinking. We used a variety of different structures from mediation, team work, writing, and comics.
Above: Students began envisioning what near and distant futures might be like via image collecting and creation.
What were your central concerns for your CAPE work this year and how have your concerns evolved since the beginning of the year? I was wondering how students would react to having been away from in-person instruction for two years. They were a bit stand-offish, but engaged in tasks required to complete the project.
What were your central concerns for your CAPE work this year and how have your concerns evolved since the beginning of the year? I was wondering how students would react to having been away from in-person instruction for two years. They were a bit stand-offish, but engaged in tasks required to complete the project.
What did you learn about how your students learn this year? What did you learn about how you teach? (Below)
What did you learn about how your students learn this year? What did you learn about how you teach? (Below)
Student's journaling and sharing gave us insight into the students. Their ideas about the future are varied. As the classroom teacher it was informative to go through this process because I struggled to imagine the end product, because it was impossible to know what would be created. Having the the students curate the final product was powerful.
Before We Begin: Ever think about the future? On the first day, students watched a CBS segment from 2021 on The Future and its possibilities!
Below: Student-created book cover design for their class book on THE FUTURE!
At one time, the PAST was the FUTURE: Students tried to identify items from the not-too-distant past.
Outside of art-making time, students read Dystopian and Utopian literature and comics!
Outside of art-making time, students read Dystopian and Utopian literature and comics!
Above: Inspired by books like, 'Black Futures,' students began considering and crafting content for their own book around the future, power, and possibility!
Above-LEFT: Students create 'found poems' about the future. Above-RIGHT: A student reads a book on the future published by a Chicago-based publisher, Lumpen. Below: Lumpen comic book.
Above: Students begin writing their own future-themed comic book stories and deciding what stories should be included in their Future book!
Students engage in the multiple intelligence/ power role play game, 'Intelligence Island' developed by Red Clay Dance Company! The Goal: Vote: Who stays on the island and who gets voted to go for help and WHY??? What are our values? Who has power in a society...even on an imaginary island?
Students engage in the multiple intelligence/ power role play game, 'Intelligence Island' developed by Red Clay Dance Company! The Goal: Vote: Who stays on the island and who gets voted to go for help and WHY??? What are our values? Who has power in a society...even on an imaginary island?
Next Three Slides: Students create postcards to and about the future!
Next Three Slides: Students create postcards to and about the future!
Below: Students were shown examples of current/ future image making!
Above and Left: Students finalize the bookmaking process through group meetings and final layout decisions.
Above and Left: Students finalize the bookmaking process through group meetings and final layout decisions.
Below: The book is completed, printed and exhibited via CAPE's Convergence end-of-year event with an accompanying response shet which asks the viewers to draw or write their own vision of the future and leave it there at the exhibit on a supplied bulletin board!
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