OVERVIEW
TITLE: Digital Environment
Grade Level: High School Accomplished
Author: Robert Tozier
Artistic Processes: Creating, Producing, Connecting
Task Description: Students will create digital scenery to demonstrate connections between culture, emotion, and location. The media will be presented as a digital background, installation, or other self-curated medium. Each digital environment will be connected to a scene from a theater production, poem, or song or the artist’s choice. Student learning is assessed through final presentations and student reflections.
Evidence of Student Learning Collected: Artist Reflection –Images of digital environments/scenery – work in progress images MCA Document
MCAs model effective assessment practice and demonstrate that standards-based teaching in the arts is specific and, rigorous, by sharing a glimpse into one teacher's classroom. The MCAs on this website come packaged with a suggested strategy for assessing student learning, types of evidence to collect, model rubrics, and samples of student work demonstrating their process and learning. The samples of student work illustrate the unit in action by providing a snapshot of a moment in time showing student response to instruction.
Click on "View the full MCA" as a guide for re-creating this unit and assessment customized for your classroom.
Theatre Connections:
TH:Cn11.1.II.a. Integrate conventions and knowledge from different art forms and other disciplines to develop a cross-cultural drama/theatre work.
TH:Re9.1.II.b. Construct meaning in a drama/theatre work, considering personal aesthetics and knowledge of production elements while respecting others' interpretations.
This model cornerstone assessment was created and piloted during the 2020-2021 school year, funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
ASSESSMENT TOOLS
DIGITAL BACKDROP - MEDIA ARTS STANDARDS ASSESSMENT
Planning
Task #1 Early Instruction – Planning
After exploring and analyzing examples of still and moving image works and digital environments, students will journal their findings and reflect on how to a digital environment such as a scenic backdrop projection creates connections between culture, emotion and location. Next, inspired by their findings, they will begin planning a digital environment inspired by a theatrical production, a scene, a song or poem.
Media Arts Performance Standards:
MA:Cn10.1.HSII.a. - Synthesize internal and external resources to enhance the creation of persuasive media artworks, such as cultural connections, introspection, research, and exemplary works.
MA:Cr3.1.HSII.a. - Consolidate production processes to demonstrate deliberate choices in organizing and integrating content and stylistic conventions in media arts production, demonstrating understanding of associated principles, such as continuity and juxtaposition.
Student Work Samples: Early Instruction Student RT-3 planning images for a scene from “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” by Frank Loesser and Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert.
Student notes: “I found images of factories but the common issue was that there were people in the background of the images…. In order to fix this I took parts of the image and moved them around so there would be no people present in the background.”
Student Notes: “The image did not look complete in this stage so I made the decision to add blocks of color that would also translate to the second image needed for this song”.
Producing
Task #2 Later Instruction - Producing
Students then researched the location, context, mood, and overall tone of the selected storyline, gathered needed assets and captured media for each component, based on the visual elements they had identified from the early investigation and the location, context, mood, and overall tone of the selected storyline.
Media Arts Performance Standards:
MA:Pr4.1.HSII.a. - Integrate various arts, media arts forms, and academic content into unified media arts productions that retain thematic integrity and stylistic continuity, such as transmedia productions.
Student Work Samples: Later Instruction
Students then created still and moving imagery in various software packages and unified these components into a digital environment.
Student RT-3 still image example
Sharing
After completing the creation of their digital environment, students presented their work to their peers, their instructor, and additional audiences, in this case as a digital projection for their peers, their instructor and then production audiences.
Media Arts Performance standards:
MA:Pr6.1.HSII a. Curate and design the presentation and distribution of collections of media artworks through a variety of contexts, such as mass audiences, and physical and virtual channels.
b. Evaluate and implement improvements in presenting media artworks, considering personal, local, and social impacts such as changes that occurred for people, or to a situation.
MA:Cr3.1.II b. Refine and elaborate aesthetic elements and technical components to intentionally form impactful expressions in media artworks for specific purposes, intentions, audiences and contexts.
Student Work Samples:
Student RT-2 shares their digital environment on stage with their class and their instructor.
Student RT-2's backdrop in use during a performance.
