Rob Sample - Global Awareness

I drafted the Global Awareness lesson for my Advanced Art class (third and fourth year students).  My main goal for the project is to expose the students to the universal aspects of humanity that bridge the boundaries of any one country - searching for similarities, through the differences, that link us all as human.  

The plan, at a basic level, is to use ePals to establish a partnership with a school overseas (most likely one looking to learn English and learn about American culture) and have the students embark on a Marking Term long exchange where my students communicate via writing, but also keep a sketch diary of their every day lives/surroundings to send to their ePals as well.  In return, the sister school could send back photos of their daily lives/surroundings, and if we were lucky enough to find another high school Art class - they could send us back drawings.  If we found another art class the project to could culminate with a big bi-class group critique of all of the drawings via webcam.  

A slightly more Baroque version of this lesson partners with willing foreign language classes at our school so that we could broaden our reach across the globe without worrying about a language barrier.  Our high school currently offers five spoken languages, so dropping art students into partnerships with students interacting with French, German, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic speaking countries could really lead to an excellent end of unit critique in terms of what the students learned about student life in another part of the world, as well as what they shared about their own lives.  This route is obviously more complex as it involves not only coordinating with a school (or multiple schools) overseas, but also with multiple teachers in my own building.  It would however be a great exercise in interdisciplinary teaching that I am sure any administrator would love to endorse.