8th Grade: Mixed Media Stratas

This project was a little out there, but I wanted to do mixed media and I wanted to incorporate some poetry, so this is what I came up with. 

All of the students has to write a poem about themselves. Mine had to do with my childhood (using the "I am from..." format. I gave them a lot of examples, some silly, some serious. They wrote their own. If they seemed to be struggling, I gave them a guide/ template to help them write their poems. 

Then, we talked about mixed media, imagery, and collage. We talked about how we could pull out certain images from our poem to create something unique. 

Unfortunately, I don't have many process photos, but I will explain how we made these:

1. Everyone got a canvas board. They could collage and paint on these. I encouraged them to bring in materials from home, but I had some to supplement. 

2. The second layer (which needed to house the third layer) was placed on top of the canvass board using a few layers of cardboard underneath to make it "pop out."

3. The third layer, which was supposed to be one object or image (picture, magazine cutout, or drawing), was placed on top of the second layer in the same manner. 

Here are some of the student examples and their poems: