Sarah Sanders is an art educator based in New York City. She holds a Bachelors in Accounting and Visual Arts from The College of Charleston, SC. As a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia 2016-2018, she taught math, English, and economics for two years with secondary projects focused in community economic development, girls education, and education resources. Currently, holding a Master's in International Political Economy and Development from Fordham University as well as candidacy for Master's in Art + Education from New York University, she seeks to continue her work in international education and visual arts integration.

Cassandra Halko is an art educator who believes in exploring the world through a lens of curiosity. She used her Bachelor's Degree in Communications: Public Relations and Advertising before moving on to explore a new career path in education. This background experience gives her a unique teaching practice that encourages students to think critically as well as develop their own personal narratives and storytelling through art. She is now completing her Master's in Art + Education from New York University and will use her educational experiences thus far to teach and learn with students for many years to come.

At the beginning of the course, students explored the meaning of identity and observed how they convey their identity through digital means such as on social media platforms. After brainstorming various qualities and experiences that contribute to our identity, students created multimedia identity collages - some composing physical collages and others using digital platforms.

Next, students explored how public figures are presented and how they choose to represent their identity in the media - including their physical appearance, personal branding, product/brand association, etc. Students then considered their own persona exhibited through their use of media. In this digital diptych, we see hidden realities uncovered to tell a more realistic narrative.

During this class, we navigated conversation around critical media literacy as well as appropriation of art. Students had a chance to reflect on past social media posts and consider the digital persona they have created for themselves. Pairing one of their photos with an ad campaign or brand, students made critical connections between their own personal identity and how it relates to expectations set by society or the expectations they set for themselves.

'Me in Motion' was a two-part investigation into the ways in which identity is influenced, and how it changes over time. Students first explored how stop motion pictures and videography can be used as an art medium to describe their identity. They created self-narratives to describe past, present, and/or future identities through video editing. Next, students considered how image, text, composition and other technical attributes could be utilized to create a poster for their identity film.