DESIGN
"Preserve/Conserve - an invocation" by artist Jill Chism (photograph by Jim Cullen), 2008.
Image used with permission by artist.
Design - Unit Plan and Rationale
(unit plan)
Designing a new unit of work is much like embarking on a new inquiry journey. It requires a spark of interest, questioning, lots of research and the ability to draw on old and new knowledge to form connections. Thus, my inquiry journey begins with an interest and old knowledge in wearable art. This interest was catapulted to new levels a few years ago, when I experienced an opening night at the World of WearableArt® Awards in Wellington, New Zealand. The artworks were presented like nothing I had experienced before and gave me a whole new way of looking at the contexts in which we view art and wearable forms. Having previously taught units of work, that incorporated the wearable art form, I am familiar with some of the problems that students may encounter, including approaching the design as a costume or for a ‘dress up’ parade. For this reason, I designed A Wearable Co-Creation so that students are taken through two cycles of inquiry where more guidance and support is nurtured in the first (see image 1 below). The subsequent inquiry cycle draws on the repertoire of strategies, practices and knowledge built from the first and allows for more student autonomy and complexity within the phases (Bell, Smetana & Binns, 2005; Murdoch, 2018).
Using the Guided Inquiry Design® model by Kuhlthau, Maniotes & Caspari (2012), the first cycle of inquiry begins with students viewing a series of images, in various fashion and wearable art contexts, that provoke questioning and inquiry. Students are first guided in aspects of being a reader-viewer of multi-modal information, a skill that is transferable to many contexts (Serafini, 2012). Generative questioning frameworks such as the Question Formulation Technique™ (QFT™) and Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) guide students to view information from a variety of sources and forms, including written text and still and moving images. Working both individually and collaboratively, students use generic (QFT™) and disciplinary (VTS) skills, to observe and produce questions (Lupton & Bruce, 2010). Although the questioning begins with a teacher-directed stimulus and questioning framework, it allows for student agency in the sub-questions they pose and exploration of their own questions. Importantly, during this cycle of guided inquiry, students are mentored through generic questioning techniques so that they can build upon these skills and utilise them in the next, more open, cycle of inquiry (Martin-Hansen, 2002). By scaffolding the learning in this first cycle, students can feel more confident in their abilities and role as an inquirer, supporting a more natural progression into self-directed learning (MacKenzie & Bathurst-Hunt, 2018; Martin-Hansen, 2002) (see image 2).
Image 2 - Cycle One - Questioning Frameworks. Created by author - Lisa Norris 2018
As students question and examine the effects of fashion and wearable art, situated in social and cultural contexts, students’ questions also consider the ethics and effects of the industries. Students may consider the ‘victim voices’ such as foreign workers that are exploited, class divisions that arise, self-identity pressures and harm caused to the environment. Students also examine the power of the artist and designers’ voices in fashion and wearable art. Through this questioning and latter synthesis of their own inquiry (digital infographic, etc), students use persuasive written, visual, symbolic and other text to socially critique and communicate a viewpoint to a chosen audience. This conscious raising questioning and synthesis move student’s inquiry into the transformative window of information literacy (Lupton, 2016). (See image 3 for overview of GeSTE Windows in Cycle One.)
To seek more information about their own inquiry questions, students are guided through the use of other generic search techniques and methodologies including various search engine strategies such as the use of Boolean operators. Students critically evaluate information, such as media articles, artist statements and fashion photo shoots for relevance and credibility of information using analysis questioning frameworks (Lupton, 2016). During gather and create phases, students must select and organise materials and processes to synthesise information using a variety of textual and design elements. Synthesised information, in the form of infographics and exhibited displays, employs Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Capability and generic management skills so as to present information effectively to an audience (Lupton & Bruce, 2010).
Using a second inquiry cycle, a more coupled inquiry approach is assumed by allowing students to more intimately direct their next investigations (Martin-Hansen, 2002). Students are again presented with a teacher-directed stimulus, this time, exploring the work of regional artist Jill Chism (see image 4 below). The transformative window is opened as students are challenged to question the way we engage with the environment and who and what is impacted. Presenting Chism’s environmental artwork project, “Water’s Edge - Creating Environments”, allows for authentic engagement through direct stimulus. Furthermore, the work presents a modelled example of how artist’s use inquiry processes to shape their work (Brown (McCormack), et al, 2018). Students are further immersed in authentic information experiences and practices, when students visit Cape Hillsborough National Park, Mackay, a local, natural environment that is connected to the artist's work (Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2018; Kuhlthau, Maniotes & Caspari, 2012; Lupton & Bruce, 2010). Here, students are able to authentically experience their own and others connection with the environment including listening to indigenous stories of the Yuibera people and observational inquiry of the ecosystem. There is still a great deal of direction provided by the teacher at this stage in the choice of the provocations, however, students are allowed more freedom in the exploratory and creation phases.
Teacher guidance remains through to the point where the teacher poses the essential question: How do we or can we co-create our future with the environment? This broad question is perpetually arguable in nature and allows for further student questioning, investigation and personal reflection (Wiggins, 2007). It also embraces the transformative window again, where social responsibilities are questioned and inquiry into understanding other voices and viewpoints is critical. The emphasis from this point on is for the student to take ownership and thus agency of their own inquiry, investigating existing and potential relationships with the environment through information seeking processes. By directing their own research, posing their own generative and essential questions and seeking the knowledge and skills needed to create a resolved artwork that synthesises their learning, students can exercise a great deal of direction over their own inquiry journey.
Image 4 - "Preserve/Conserve - an invocation" by artist Jill Chism, 2008.
Images used with permission by artist.
Students further develop their own personal inquiries through the exploration and selection of materials and processes to create a wearable artwork that communicates meaning and message about environmental relationships to others. In the situated window as an artist, students investigate various materials and processes, through class-directed workshops and self-directed experimentation, recording and evaluating their inquiry process through visual journal reflections. Through both, the artist and audience lenses, information is explored and constructed through rich stimulus and sources, including the exploration of practicing artists and natural environments (Lupton, 2016). Various discipline strategies, such as researching artists and their work through the reverse chronology research method, are employed (Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2018). Furthermore, students use discipline based questioning frameworks such as Visual Thinking Strategies and visual art analysis tools to make meaning and apply to new contexts. With tools, such as their visual journal, students research, respond and develop ideas using visual art terminology in their text and apply visual code in their art making. (See image 5 below for an overview of the second cycle in this unit.)
Image 5 - Overview of The Wearable Co-Creation - Inquiry Two
Created by author - Lisa Norris 2018
At the heart of student learning, in the visual arts, is that of a studio culture that exists within dynamic art environments and this is certainly espoused in this inquiry unit (Hetland, et al, 2013). The two main components that create this culture include firstly, a physical (and virtual) space, that considers student’s art research and practice needs. Secondly, a social space, that supports and develops students collaborative and connectedness needs, is also an essential ingredient of studio culture, habits and life skill competencies (Hetland, et al, 2013; Kuhlthau, Maniotes & Caspari, 2012). Kuhlthau, Maniotes & Caspari (2012) indeed reiterate the need for a “rich environment of objects, experts, and experiences” (p. 14) in their Guided Inquiry Design®. The art room, in this scenario, may seem like a hive of activity and noisy chaos where the teacher plays a peripheral role. Yet the teacher remains, supporting, often open and individual inquiry, through observing and listening to student ideas and frustrations, suggesting directions that they could explore and connecting them with artists and other rich knowledge that exists in the teacher’s extensive expertise (Murdoch, 2018). Each phase of this unit involves some degree of intervention which may come in the form of teacher conversation and direction in resolving a meaningful inquiry question (identify phase) to teacher and other mentor intervention, such as guest artists, when problem solving the use of construction materials (gather phase) (Kuhlthau, Maniotes & Caspari, 2012). Sustained guidance, by an extended community of mentors and student peers, is core to student learning in this unit (Kuhlthau, Maniotes & Caspari, 2012). Using their teacher and other mentors, students learn, through modelled inquiry techniques, how they practice and integrate inquiry learning into their everyday practice (Smilan, 2016). Although the ultimate goal is for these students to develop a stronger agency in their inquiry learning, some form of guidance level is always maintained and mostly celebrated as it forms important connections and relationships within the inner and outer studio space (Murdoch, 2018).
One of the main distinctions that sets A Wearable Co-Creation apart from the previous unit, it was loosely modelled on, is the robust use of questioning in all phases of the cycles. Visual Art curriculums utilise varying models of the non-hierarchical inquiry processes of researching, reflecting, developing and resolving (see image 6 below) which implicitly uses questioning frameworks in student learning (Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2018; Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority). This unit produces student learning outcomes designed around the Australian Curriculum Visual Art Year 9 and 10 descriptors and standards, however, as it is situated at the crossroads of senior visual art, modelling has also be generated around the General Senior Syllabus for Visual Art 2019.
A Wearable Co-Creation unit is much more explicit in the questioning frameworks that it uses, such as in the unit’s first inquiry cycle, which explores the intersections and contrasts that exist between fashion and wearable art. In the open and immerse phases, the Question Formulation Technique™ (QFT™) is introduced to the class and utilised in conjunction with Jackson’s continuum of more powerful questions, to provoke ideas and elicit prime questions that are more interesting and meaningful, about fashion (Jackson, 2013; McKenzie, 2005). Students also explore wearable art contexts using specific disciplinary questions guided by the Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) framework. VTS increases observation through purposefully slowing down perception and using three simple questions when viewing an image for the purpose of opening up new perspectives, developing interrogations skills, eliciting critical thinking and deepening learning (Moeller, et al, 2013; Eisner, 2008). This purposeful questioning to generate curiosity and apply imaginative responses is key to the Critical and Creative Thinking capabilities. In both the QFT™ and VTS frameworks, students are afforded a great deal of agency in the questioning that is developed with the teacher’s role shifting from directional to facilitating as required.
Throughout the phases, the teacher is able to intervene and refocus students through initiating further questioning guidance. Gourley’s Inquiry Circle process questioning provides a useful guide that can be adapted to the situational context of each inquiry cycle and phase. Furthermore, the sources of information that are provided can also be an implicit way of directing students or guiding the type of questioning that could happen. An example of this guidance would be the suggestion to begin a collaborative curation of articles, using Padlet, that may assist students, in their inquiry investigations into fashion and wearable art (see image 7 below). By introducing a specific entry of articles and article types, students can be guided with a range of inquiry possibilities. This is not a questioning technique, however, it is important to recognise the significant impact that resources and stimulus, in many literary forms including visual, can play in guiding questioning and developing information literacy (Lupton & Bruce, 2010). Using the Guided Inquiry Design® framework, A Wearable Co-Creation endeavours to use a combination of targeted questioning frameworks and well chosen stimulus and resources to allow for various and multiple forms of learning and information literacy to manifest.
A Wearable Co-Creation has been designed to create an integrated and continuous cycle of inquiry that strives to create “authentic and holistic learning” (Lupton, 2017, p. 31). As illustrated through the unit, inquiry learning and information literacy is experienced by students through generic, situated and transformative windows but is uniquely shaped by its expressive elements. Communication through creative and expressive formats is core to both A Wearable Co-Creation and Visual Arts education (Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2018; Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority). Opportunities to express oneself through artistic formats exist continuously throughout many phases of this inquiry unit. The creation of a digital resource, developing ICT Capability, in the first inquiry cycle, provides opportunities for the students to express their viewpoints on fashion and wearable art as well as expressing a developed personal aesthetic through the design elements that are employed in the construction of the digital resource. In all phases of inquiry, students use their visual journals (see image 8 below) as a tool with which to express their curiosities, ideas, research discoveries and resolution of ideas. They employ multiple literacy formats including written and visual text. The visual journal presents a vital tool for students to personally express reflective and evaluative inquiry questions and processes.
Image 8 - Visual Journals - images and photograph by author Lisa Norris 2018
During the second inquiry cycle, students are given many opportunities to inquire about and aesthetically evaluate the expressive information of others through the exploration of other artists and their practices. Jill Chism’s work was chosen as a direct stimulus for several reasons including her use of inquiry processes and her intimate relationship with the environment. This deeply personal connection is embodied in her beliefs, feelings and sensory experiences (Lupton, 2016). Chism's use of “information nourishment” (Lupton, 2016), which is exhibited through her artwork, forms a significant modelling for students to capture in their own explorations. These processes exemplify how artists use multi-literate perceptions and cognition or, as the artist describes it, to gain “knowledge beyond words and information” (Chism, n.d., as cited in Brown (McCormack), et al, 2018, p. 201). Students are further immersed in this creative empirical inquiry when they engage in authentic expressive practices during their visit to the Cape Hillsborough National Park site (see image 9) (Lupton, 2016). These practices include sensory and emotional explorations, recorded in their visual journals. Additionally, as part of a rich studio culture, other sources and stimulus (see image 10) are also provided for students to explore, including other art forms and literature (Hetland, et al, 2013). Expressive sources of information may come in the form of artist statements, poetry and picture books. Indeed many picture books (Marsden & Tan, Baker, Wiesner, see images 11 and 12) explore environmental stories that present “powerful and engaging sources of information, ideas and perspectives” (Murdoch, 2015). Furthermore, students continue to express their own ideas and aesthetic through the processes of making. Student’s final wearable artwork is the result of their resolved cumulative expression.
Image 10 - Stimulus for The Wearable Co-Creation - Inquiry Two
Image by author - Lisa Norris 2018
Image 9 - "Pandanus palms viewed from Andrews Point track, Cape Hillsborough National Park, Queensland"
by Kimberley Melissa Booth 2018
Image 11 - "The Rabbits" by John Marsden, Shaun Tan (Illustrator) 2008
Image 12 - "Window" by Jeannie Baker 2002
Finally, students personally reflect, through evaluative questioning, as to the intention and purpose of their artwork. Selection of audience and context for display further empowers students to challenge other’s thinking and actions, raising the consciousness of their audience (Lupton, 2016). They consider what they are trying to express to others, through the context of their display and how the artwork is worn and modelled, to make meaning and express an aesthetic. Use of movement, sound, visuals and digital resources uses other curriculums to enhance the expressive elements of the display.
Whilst this unit has been written as a challenging year 10 unit in Visual Arts, the level of guidance and support can be modified to suit the required needs of students. In the Queensland curriculum, this unit places well as a precursor to the undertaking of Senior Visual Art. Students exposure to inquiry learning through “conceptual and problem-solving processes” (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2011, p. 17) is a natural progression into more complex and self-directed inquiry in later learning.
References:
McKenzie, J. (2005). Questions as Technology. In J. A. McKenzie, Learning to question to wonder to learn, (pp. 15-26). Washington: FNO Press.
