Franklin Middle School, Melodee Strong, 6-8th grade, 5 hrs
When I visited Franklin on Wednesday, students were in the middle of completing projects they had started over the past week while I was on break. Sixth graders were advancing in their watercolor unit by translating an image into a painting. Several students chose flowers or plants, while some chose animals such as dogs and cats. Seventh grade was working on their analogous and complementary watercolor paintings. These patterns could be either realistic or abstract, and were drawn from objects that Ms. Strong had available in her classroom. Some objects were skulls, hands, birdhouses, and more.
Eighth graders were working on paper mache masks that were based on different ethnic masks throughout history. As apart of their grade, they must choose an aspect of a certain mask and include that in their design and finished piece. To begin, students designed their mask on a piece of paper that had outlines and facial features. They were then given a brown paper mask to add on to. On Wednesday, the students were moving on to painting and finishing adding embellishments with cardboard, and supporting that with paper mache. I helped one student in particular with painting techniques since she needed to catch up. Some eighth graders had added onto the facial features of their mask through paper mache, and were continuing to add embellishments such as shapes.
During my time at Franklin that day, I was able to talk more with students and get to know them a bit better through the work they were making. I was particularly impressed by the sixth graders and their attention to detail while working on their watercolor paintings. This next week, during Franklin’s spring break, I am in the studio working on two projects that I have upcoming critiques for.