Graffitti and Communication??
After browsing a bit at the Tate and indulging the anarchist side of me, i found this cool little book that talks about interacting with your environment ( its called “The Guerrilla Art Kit”, by Keri Smith and you can buy it here
Anyway, here’s an idea for integrating some ‘communing with the environment’ into communication lessons for young adults with SLD….
Keri Smith’s book gives some good ways to make homemade stickers, using gelatin; or you can use pre-made labels from a stationers. Making homemade stickers gives a whole set of sequencing and matching tasks in itself – this is how i am planning to do it… put all the materials needed into the centre of the table, clearly labelled with appropriate symbols or identifiers. Give each student a task strip showing which items they need to find and in what order (if the group is able enough, these strips may include instructions of what to do with each ingredient as well!). Take the group through the process of making their sticker paper.
Whilst the sticker paper is drying, explore some different images with the students. I am going to use some A4 laminates of ‘traditional’ street graffitti, some tribal designs and some pictures of things around the college that may evoke a response from the students, e.g. a picture of people smiling and talking. There’s an opportunity to talk about how the pictures make them feel, using key words and symbol prompts to elicit the notion of different feelings; as well as exploring the student ‘voice’ in terms of how they respond to key images of their environment.
The students practise drawing or using stencils of a chosen design, or chose and print a design from an internet search. Once the paper is dry, they can then mount these images (or redraw if brave enough) onto the sticker paper. Cut them out if need be, and then, depending on how much you value your job… either shamelessly graffitti the college walls, or go onto create a “wall” to be graffitti’d – i’m going for a wall on poster board myself!!
on July 7th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Great idea- I might use it… Got to wait and see what I’m teaching first !