James' CE Class - Week 3

HELLOOOOOOOOO from James' Creative Expression class! As you may have heard, I get the awesome honor of being the first teacher to wake their creative minds up in the morning. Even though most of us are still sleepy because we've been doing so many activities during the day, we're still creating some awesome work! Because of the students' thoughtful contributions, we are having a blast every morning learning about how art has connections to our own lives and how we can express ourselves through creative writing.

We start every morning off by journaling our thoughts, what we've been doing, and our reactions to the performances we've seen. Some of us are having fun just writing about about all the new friends we're making. Today, I challenged everyone to write about the "risks" they are taking at Arts-x-press. Everyone wrote about how they are taking "risks" by trying a new art form, talking to new people, or even trying new foods at our meals!

Over the past three classes, our activities have ranged from exploring our creative sides with "Life Maps" of where we've been, where we are, and where we're going; to discovering our writing skills with "I Am Like..." poems and Admiration poems. As we're learning, anyone can be a poet or creative writer. All it takes is some brainstorming, self-reflection, and imagination.

We also got to have an awesome group discussion about what "street art" is and how we can connect art to the real world. We then got to apply our connections to different pieces of street art from the artist Banksy, which allowed us to explore messages and meaning behind art. Our students have already found more connections in the musical In The Heights!

Not only are we all learning about art, but we're learning about ourselves in the process. You should all be excited about all the creative expressions these artists will be exploring in the future! We can't wait to share our work with you tomorrow night!