What is Art...?

This year for my 7th and 8th grade, I wanted to do something different when we came to the point in our curriculum discussing what is art? This is always something I love to teach and discuss, however, this can always bring a challenge to the art room because students in middle school do not want to openly talk about what they consider to be art. So, I thought I would go in another direction and bring spaghetti and marshmallows into the discussion... Thanks to pinterest =).

To begin, I had my 7th and 8th graders fill out a questionnaire where I just wanted their personal opinion of what they thought art was. This questionnaire had questions like if something is made on the computer would they consider it art, or something like if a piece of art had movement or turned would it be considered art. They had to use sentences to explain because I did not want the basic lazy answer of yes and no. After I read over their responses, I brought some interesting ones back to them and we discussed them briefly and then I let the chaos begin...I gave each table one bag of marshmallows and one box of uncooked spaghetti. There of course were some rules...They had to work together cooperatively as a table to build a tall three dimensional structure using nothing but the marshmallows and spaghetti and their structure had to stand free standing with no help!
So I set the smart board timer to 20 minutes and the chaos began...Check out their process below.

Some tables chose to build individual structures and then bring them together near the end of the time.

While some worked at a very slow BUT steady pace

 

 

 Building cubes was a popular way to go...

 

I loved watching them go to work as a table. It was interesting to watch how each table approached this project differently. Some chose to tear the boxes and bags open and go at it and spaghetti and marshmallows flying everywhere, where some barely opened their bags and boxes and worked at a steady, non chaotic pace. They kept a close watch on the smart board for time and begged me to allow them 5 more minutes. haha

When the timer went off, we had 3 out of 5 tables have standing three dimensional structures. I went around a measured how tall the structures were and the three standing were  12'', 14'' and 23" tall. The winning table got a prize but so did everyone else because they worked so hard and had fun!

Here is the winning free standing structure that measured 23 inches!

 

At the end of class we cleaned up and discussed if they thought their structures were considered to be art.The entire class was in agreement that they considered their structures to be art because they worked hard creating it, they had to problem solve and it took time!

I encouraged students to be more aware of their surroundings and what they would consider art when they were out and about in their daily lives! I think they really liked it and it is definitely a project I will use in the future! =)