Example of a differentiated Lesson

Hand Drawings
Gauging student skills and abilities
Hands and faces are intricate and unique subjects, therefore they are good challenges for drawing students. At the beginning of the semester, I have students complete a series of pre-instructional drawings, sort of like pretests. One of which is ha hand, another is a chair and one is a face. During the course of the semester then, a more serious, substantial drawing of each of these subjects eventually serves as sort of a benchmark for each student's progress.

Toward the end of the first quarter I've been able to determine the ability level of my students from previous assignments in their sketchbooks as well as a number of other activities. On assessment I took this year was a Left/Right brain inventory survey, which allegedly can determine if students have an inclination toward particular thinking modes which would allow them to perceive visually more easily, or with more difficulty.

Direct Instruction
To begin the unit I give students an analogy for drawing from real life- simultaneously observing and recording those observations, I ask them to imagine a microscopic explorer traveling the terrain that is their subject (a hand, face, or still life object). Then I demonstrate the technique of blind contour drawing on the board.

Basically, for "contour drawing," you pick a point on the object where the eye can begin its slow journey around the contour or edge of the object. The eye is barely crawling as it begins its journey. When the eye begins to move, so should the hand holding the pencil. At no time should you look at your hand as it draws. Students try drawing the entire contour of the object without lifting your pencil form the paper. Part of the point of the exercise is to develop the student's perception of edges, "contours," or borders between shapes, AKA lines.

Next, students are asked to complete a series of blind contour drawings in their sketchbooks. First with the help of a paper bag to keep them from looking at their paper. Then, gradually the amount of time spent drawing increases and they are challenged to draw "blind" without the bag.

One step might be considered to incorporate cooperative , because instead of hands or shoes, students are asked to take turns modeling for each other, so that they can draw blind-contours of faces.

Information Processing/Discussion
Along the way we debrief. Sometimes one-on-one with each student, sometimes in small groups, and a few times as an entire class, discussing how their drawings are accurate records of their perceptions, not necessarily perfect representations of their hands (or shoes or faces). We discuss and try to evaluate both the process and the products. One of the things that is important is to have the students reflect on how the process felt. If they were focused, able to avoid distractions, "absorbed" so to speak, and lost track of time, felt relaxed yet alert, or generally became silent or wordless (both outwardly and better yet, in their own minds) then, hopefully they can recreate those feelings each time they attempt a drawing. This hones their perceptual skills, stretches their attention-spans, and ideally, shifts them from a typically verbal to a more visual/spacial cognitive mode which is beneficial to being able to draw accurately.

Once students have improved their blind-contour skills enough, we add back in the "check-back" or "modified" contour drawing, where students try to look at the subject more than at their paper, but are now allowed to check back periodically in order to correct for placement and proportions. Students are then given viewfinders and introduced to the concepts of selecting a composition within a format (picture frame) and the practice of some artists of imagining that whatever they are viewing is flattened onto a single surface (the picture plane). Finally, they are asked to tone a format on a page, pose their hands with the viewfinder, and spend a few days drawing a fully developed, realistic drawing of their hands.

Assessment and Evaluation of Student Progress
When their drawings are finished, students are given a rubric to score themselves on each of the 5 perceptual skills; edge, space, proportion, shading, and composition as well as on their effort and level of improvement. They are also asked to respond to a number of reflection questions. Later I score them on the same categories, and usually try to read and comment on their reflections.

Students also view all of the drawings in the class and discuss the accuracy of the contour drawings and how convincing the shading is and analyze the compositions. Students are asked to consider the sensual, formal, expressive, and technical qualities of each others drawings during this "critique session."

So the rubric may be a formal summative assessment, the critique session is more informal, and all along the way there have been deliberate as well as incidental informal formative assesments going on. In this way, even if a given student does not achieve the desired technical proficiency, their perceptual skills may still grow and/or they may acquire an understanding of the concepts of contour, modeling shading, and arranging/selecting composition.