Disrupting Spaces with Truisms Part 2
Disrupting Spaces with Truisms Part 2
This is part 2 in a series about using art to disrupt spaces in response to student reading groups. You can read the first part here.
Dr. Goss visited our classroom space on Thursday, April 14th. We at what students had written in the slides that I shared about Jenny Holzer's work, art, disrupting spaces, and the rough draft Truisms they generated from their independent reading.
He shared copious projects from his years in the high school Language Arts classroom and his work as an English professor at Kennesaw State University. Students were able to see the connections between Holzer's Truisms, and the truth that his students breathed into various projects that colored and decorated the hallways and outdoor spaces around his school(s).
My students then looked at each other's Truisms, recorded their favorites, and journaled about where they found power in them. They wrote about their thoughts on Dr. Goss's work, and what project ideas they had.
Our students talked about what they could do with the Truisms. We agreed that a great start for this work would be posting them around the school on brightly colored paper - but they wanted to do more. Inspired by the voicemail out of a California elementary school (where you can call and get voice messages of affirmation and hope from students as young as kindergarten) they wanted to create a voice mail where students could leave their own Truisms. Students from our school would have to "collect" all 10 Truisms, arrange them in the correct order, and then call the phone number created through the Easter Eggs at the bottom right corner. While this feels very Ready Player One (and they even said this was part of the impetus), the point is about the construction of truth, and why that is important. I'm going to start off class tomorrow by asking students to reflect on why this was so important for them - but I believe this is because they see these Truisms as something that lives on in the individual. Their Truisms are a spark that inspires, a seed that grows.
I'm excited to continue the work with Dr. Goss tomorrow. I was out last class, and students worked to perfect their Truisms, to try to distill them down into their purest and most impactful forms. I'm really interested in what students are thinking about their work, and the why behind their interest in capturing Truisms from others.
1. Now that we've finished our Truisms, how do you feel your YA books helped/inspired you to write them? Why do you feel the books were important in this process?
2. Why do you feel it is important for students to leave their own Truisms on Google Voicemail?
3. What do you think will happen when we post these? What are you hoping will happen? What are you concerned about?
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