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Using a Sketchbook in AP Studio Art
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by Patricia Lamb
Polk County Schools
Bartow, Florida
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| | Take Away the Drudgery
Sketchbooks present a perplexing problem for many high school students and teachers. Traditionally, an instructor gives a visual problem that students solve in the sketchbook. Instructors grade the assignments periodically. Using this process, students can find sketchbook assignments tedious, and instructors can find that student solutions are not dynamic or thought provoking. Teachers also can feel the assignments are boring to monitor and assess. For both students and teachers, the end result of the process is often pedestrian, dull drudgery.
But the use of a sketchbook is valuable preparation for students. Using a sketchbook will enrich their visual vocabularies and spark creative processes. The tradition of preparation studies and planning is a long one. The question becomes, how can instructors help students use the sketchbook as the valuable learning tool that it is?
In order to be valuable, the sketchbook has to hold some personal meaning for students. In our school district, we have tried many different ways to make sketchbooks important to students. Some teachers make the sketchbook a very heavy assessment topic, hoping to force students into using the sketchbook. That approach has not been the most successful. Students continue to ignore assignments or respond to an assignment at the last minute, preferring to pay the assessment penalties for either not doing the assignments or doing them poorly.
Personal Investment in the Work
In one successful approach for beginning-level classes, students choose a topic and address the topic in a handmade book format. To develop the book concept, students are encouraged to make the book into very personal statement. The topic might be autobiographical or tackle concepts like solitude, party, love, or war. If some students cannot find a topic to address, they might consider investigating lyrics of a song in their handmade books, since most students have feelings and ideas to convey about music and lyrics. The idea is to get them involved with an interesting topic so they can develop images for the pages and the cover.
Students are asked to engage in research that provides knowledge about the topic they have chosen. They design simple pages, the cover, and the binding. Students are required to add a page extension, include a pop-up image, alter the pages by cutting, and include a see-through image. A number of books on the market explain how to build a handmade book. Artists' Journals and Sketchbooks by Lynne Perrella is an excellent guide to exploring and creating personal sketchbooks and journals. She includes a number of tips and ideas for developing a personal journaling style as well as making beautiful pages. The book contains examples by 12 contemporary artists who work in book form.
Use a Preexisting Book
Another method of approaching the sketchbook for beginning students is blending the idea of journaling with visual exploration in an altered book form. Students can embrace this approach to explore personal journeys as well as visual problems. Each student chooses a used book that is interesting to them. Discarded textbooks work well, but any ready-made book will do. The pages with text are used as is, or several pages are prepared with gesso to provide a surface on which to draw. Each student chooses a theme for his or her book. For beginning-level students, an autobiographical book can be very meaningful. Students again begin the process by researching altered books through various Web sites. Some excellent examples are the journals of Dan Eldon (which are published as The Journey Is the Destination) and Everyday Matters by Danny Gregory.
Each student plans three or more two-page spreads for the book in sketches on the gessoed pages. Students should include text that is personal (song lyrics work well as a beginning, but students must write a response to the lyrics). Teachers can also use this book to address literacy requirements by asking students to write in response to a prompt.
The book must include a restructured edge on at least two pages, page extensions, a collage, piercings, drawings, pop-ups, photographs from magazines, doors, and secret compartments. These requirements can be varied according to student needs and interests. These plans are introduced in the beginning of the year and are just the beginning.
The book becomes a work in progress since students bring it out and work on it at least once a week for the rest of the year. The sketchbook is also used for required research and planning for class projects. Pages can be added or prepared with gesso as needed. Students find this approach intriguing and spend many hours beyond the required number developing their personal thematic books. When it contains information needed for class assignments, the sketchbook also begins to function as the text for the course.
A Project that Grows with the Student
Both of these approaches to using a sketchbook have worked well in our school district. Students become accustomed to using the book as a tool in the classroom. These approaches also help students face the white page with some strategies that are familiar.
The assignments start with some simple requirements and build in complexity until the sketchbook is the learning and creative experience that it should be. Teachers enjoy assessing the sketchbook because it has personal meaning for the students and is interesting. When students enter more advanced classes, they are accustomed to using the sketchbook as an ongoing part of their curriculum. Ideally, students carry a book from one year to the next, beginning a new one as needed.
Patricia Lamb is the senior coordinator of fine arts for the Polk County School District in Florida. She taught at Frostproof Middle Senior High School and at Lake Region High School before assuming duties at the district office. Since 1991, she has served as a Reader and Table Leader for AP Studio Art and has served as a consultant for the College Board. She has also written test questions for ETS.
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