Mariana Escobar

Art 133
Unit Paper 1
2/2/2017
Unit Paper 1
In the reading for meaning-making, it talked about the Constructivism theory.

This theory allows students to create the own understandings (Franco, Ward, Unrath, 2015) of

what is being asked from art without the teachers explaining it or being forced. Big Idea is when

artists experiment with several directions before settling on a big idea (Walker, 2001, pg. 2).

What I got out of that the more ideas and thoughts you get the better. This allows students and

artists to expand their mind. Identity includes meaning-making and big idea which are ideas to

figure out our identity through different ways.

When I become a teacher, I will use constructivism when it comes to teaching art. I

would first teach them the basics of art, like for example what kind of brushes there are or the

basic colors. Something very simple so that it wont be that I am taking over their thinking or

influencing too much that it will change their ideas. As for the Big Idea, I feel like many of us

use it in our everyday routine, from deciding what outfit to wear to deciding what idea you want

to express in art. I think the way I would try to explain this to my students is to come up with

ideas that interest them. To write them down on a piece of paper, maybe play some music to help

them loosen up more. Once they have many things written down, to combine the ones that fit

together and create a big idea or many ideas.

References
Franco, M. J., Ward, A., & Unrath, K. (2015). Artmaking as meaning-making: A new Model for
preservice elementary generalists. Art Education, 68(5), 28-33.
Walker, S. (2001). Teaching meaning in artmaking. Worcester, MA: Davis.