Alter Ego Project
Grade level: 10th-12th grade
Duration: 3 hours daily, hybrid (half the students in-person, half remote)
Long Term Learning Target: 1. I can present my emotions in a visual way
Supporting Learning Targets:
1. I can think about and process my emotions through daily sketching, writing and conversations within class .
2. I can intentionally use art materials to decorate a well crafted box.
3. I can create an artist composition that represents the layers of my emotions
4. I can actively participate in Friday flipgrid critiques
This project was taught at William Smith High School. WSHS is a project based learning school where students choose a 4 week long project that they partake in everyday. For the Alter Ego Project, the students were given a cardboard box. Each week, we focused on one side and used paint, sharpie, collage and 3D elements to relate to the weekly themes. The weekly themes were based on the cognitive dissonance model, which is a model used to categorize thoughts into false/helpful, false/unhelpful, true/unhelpful and true/helpful. Using this model, students would investigate their emotions and emotional responses to life-events.
Press the button below to see a snapshot of a day in this project (GLE’s + state standards included)
Project prompt:
“In this class you will dissect your emotions and through artistic styling, decorate a 3D box. Each week we will focus on an emotion and the layers beneath. You will take your reflections and creatively represent each face of the box with your emotional perspective.”
Daily Assignments:
Sketchbooks and lattes: each day they sketched from a prompt for 30 minutes to develop their personal art style.
Aesthetic Scan: Each day they analyzed an artist and their work and answered written prompts.
Friday flipgrid critiques: Each Friday, the students would upload a flipgrid video where they evaluated their work that week and critiqued their classmates work in the comments.
Week 1: False/Helpful
This week we focused on how to categorize things as false/helpful. The guiding phrase was “Everything is going to be ok”. Students analyzed the things we they do, the things they tell themselves and tell others that aren’t true, but are helpful to hear sometimes as they make them feel better. For example, “everything is going to be ok” isn’t always true, sometimes things aren’t ok, but telling ourselves it is in times of great distress helps us feel and function better. The artist we analyzed this week was Annegret Soltau.
Week 2: False/Unhelpful
This week we focused on how to categorize things as false/unhelpful. The guiding phrase was “Everything is broken”. Things that are false/unhelpful are the things that pull us down that we must cast off. These are negative thoughts that we should not carry as they are not helpful. The students analyzed things they told themselves, things others have told them, and things society as a whole told them that ultimately aren’t helpful and only cause harm. We analyzed the artist Titus Kaphar and learned about the Kintsugi technique this week.
Week 3: True/Unhelpful
This week we focused on how to categorize things as true/unhelpful. The guiding phrase was “I know, but everything is still broken”. Students thought about things that are true but, ultimately unhelpful to hear, see or think. The artists studied this week were Mark Bradford, Ivan Alifan, ABOVE and The Heidelberg Project.
Week 4: True/Helpful
This week we focused on how to categorize things as true/helpful. The guiding phrase was “I got this”. Students thought about what things they hear, see and think that are both true and beneficial to hold on to for a positive mindset. The artists analyzed this week were Pablo Picasso, Lois O’Hara and Abigail DeVille.
