After disassembly, it was time to “play” and explore what parts seem to fit together, and what they might be. Students could make their mechanisms wearable or as a stand-alone sculpture. One student brought in a garden work clove and turned it into a “Molecular HyperSonic Pulse Gauntlet.” 
These are the directions I posted to Google Classroom for my students:

"Students will disassemble computers, and technology equipment, and recycle these materials into inventions that "look" as if they have a purpose that would fit into a sci-fi/Steampunk universe. Cosmic Wave Generators, Wormhole Portal Projectors, Shield Generator, VoiceBox Manipulator, Time Portals, futuristic medical devices... Mechanisms created should look like they "could" do something.
​
Items can be "stand-alone" or wearable. Though many supplies will be provided, to exceed expectations, students should bring in old mechanical objects (non-functional radio, digital camera, CD/DVD player...) or wearable objects (Gloves, Shoes, Glasses, Hats, umbrella...) to be altered into sci-fi objects. Though not necessary, battery operated lights can also be incorporated but nothing that can be plugged in. Guns or weapons of any kind are not permissible subjects. 
For safety reasons, DO NOT open batteries or computer screens. They can contain toxic components. When in doubt, ask.

This assignment will have a written component at its conclusion. A title will be translated into Latin, and your description will be entered into www.csgenerator.com (Complex Sentence Generator) to make it sound more futuristic or other-worldly. This description will be printed and displayed with your work."

I had stations set up around the room for students to assemble sculptures; a hot glue area, tape area, spray booth, painting table, etc. Some students added patinas to their work to give them an old or worn appearance. Acrylic modeling paste, and watercolor Frisket were good for these. Even rubber cement can add interesting goopy textures for an “alien birthing chamber.” This was also an opportunity for me to clean out shelves with items I had no idea what I was going to do with. Students found uses for almost everything! Imaginations ran wild!

In the end, students explored recycling, engineering, reinforced their literacy skills and created sculptures that had the whole school talking. It was a fun experience!

This was an engaging lessons that my students really enjoyed! It did require a bit of pre-planning to allow students to trace projections of their chosen cartoons. So while students worked on their grid self-portraits, one at a time were called up to trace a cartoon onto large construction paper.

These were set aside until the project was ready to begin. Students chose characters based on their childhood favorite or a character they thought best matched their personality. They used a razor to cut out their cartoon to leave a negative space where we would draw. Some did choose to use scissors instead. The construction paper was glued to large white drawing paper and the edges traced in permanent marker to "clean-up" the contours.

Students then did sketches of their character and the skeleton that would fit inside. I had a 3-D skeleton model from the biology class for a reference while they drew as well as some skeleton print-outs they could keep at their desks. Those who did animal-based cartoons were encouraged to use online animal skeleton resources. We talked about how form and function was an important concept in science. That the skeleton would need to be abstracted to fit the contours of the cartoons. Sometimes more or less ribs would be needed, Perhaps the shape of the skull would be unusual. They needed to work through these visual problems to create their skeletons.

We did peer critiques of sketches to see what details might need to be added or were missing, and then corrections were made. When students felt their sketch was ready to be re-drawn on final paper, they showed them to me to be initialed. I checked for their level of detail and signed off if I felt they were "good-to-go."

Here below you can see some of these preliminary steps. To finish figures, the skeletons were shaded with regular pencils and tortillions (blending sticks).  Colored pencil was used to give the bones a light hue, but this also helped blend the shadows even more. Those who finished early were encouraged to add lungs, or additional details they felt would enhance their skeleton. Overall, the results were positive for everyone, and the display grabbed a lot of attention.

The video above will walk you through my process in this lesson. It was inspired by contemporary artist Michael Paulus. A similar lesson by Ian Sands, a fellow art teacher in NC, can be found on his blog HERE.

Self portraits are always a popular project at all grade levels, but I wanted to connect them to a contemporary artist this year instead of Renaissance artists as I usually do. For this unit we watched videos about Kehinde's work, like THIS one, and others. 

I also wanted to offer a simple version of this exploration for my introductory students and a more complex exploration for my advanced students. All spent a day taking "selfies" in a photo booth I set up in my classroom. (Video below)

The advanced students then had 2 options. #1 was to just transfer the image to a larger gridded paper. If this was their first gridding experience, I suggested they do that.

#2 Those who had done grids before were given a challenge... to work on 4 x 4 inch squares of various materials and media to create a mural-size portrait. I created some video tutorials (Linked at the end of this post) to help them along and I created the sample below so they could see the kinds of possibilities that might be available to them. 

Below are some detail shots of the squares. The back of the mural is held together with 4 large sheets of drawing paper (18 x 24 in.) and Elmer's glue.

For my introductory students, we essentially created a traditional grid portrait, but in the squares of the final grid we also created stencils to be repeated in the background. I encouraged students to pick a cultural symbol or something they felt expressed their personality. As we reviewed Mr. Wiley's work, students noted that sometimes the background patterns overlapped the figure. This created a sense of depth and contrast. Students were to make at least 3 pieces of their pattern pieces overlap the figure. In my sample, I used a clover to connect with my Irish heritage. I encouraged students to rotate their stenciled design to keep the pattern more visually dynamic. We colored the face in black and white to learn about tones/shading, and used color in the patterns and background for contrast.