Beyond Independent Reading: Disrupting Spaces with Truisms PART 1

Jenny Holzer - Truisms

I had never heard about the work of Jenny Holzer. Dr. Stephen Goss from Kennesaw State University was speaking with me over Zoom a week before he was to come out to my school to work with my Writer's Workshop students and potentially a section of my 10th Grade ELA classes. I had met Goss several years ago at the National Council of Teachers of English conference, but I had known a little about his work from speaking with some of the other professors. To put it mildly, every five-minute conversation I had ever had with the man had led to entire units of lesson planning in an instant. So when he agreed to join my dissertation committee I was pretty excited. I knew that we would work really well together.

Jenny Holzer - Projected Trusisms

My research area of focus seeks to examine how young adult reading groups can become centers for advocacy and change in student communities. In Writer's Workshop, I had somehow been blessed with six of the most amazing students I've ever taught and all year we have done some pretty outrageous and outside of the box things (already). We have built a tight-knit community where we have discussed current events, politics, psychology, dreams, fears, and deeply held beliefs all year long while reading and writing. We've created a safe space. Most recently, we read YAL books independently with the knowledge that we'd be doing some kind of arts-based response to disrupt spaces, focusing in some way on the issues presented in the books. 

The above are topics that students identified from their YAL books

First, we watched Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop (you can read about it HERE). Students reflected on art versus graffiti, the purpose of art, and the themes from the documentary. We then looked at Jenny Holzer's work: 

1. We started with this student art history project on Youtube which examined her "Truisms" from the 1980s. If you're not familiar, truisms are single bold sentences that express seed ideas that are meant to get people who view them to think. Similar to how aggressive advertising is, these messages are put in very public spaces and are not attributed to anything in particular. 
2. We explored how Holzer's work had been at the Grammy's, on the back of Lorde's dress.
3. We experienced more Truisms.
4. We learned about how Holzer used LED sign trucks to speak out against gun violence and schools.
5. We looked at a LARGE scale projection project.

Student Response to Jenny Holzer's Work

Next, we came up with ideas on how we could use art to raise awareness about the topics we identified from our YAL books. I asked, "what can art do?"

Student Responses on Ideas for Projects

We ended the class writing our own Truisms. Dr. Goss would be joining us for our next class, and we wanted to come into the class starting with ideas and armed with our truth. The following are their first drafts of truisms from their books.

Part Two will focus on the visit from Dr. Goss and the project idea we have decided on as we work towards disrupting spaces with Truisms!