Political Cartoon Contest: Election 2008

Authentic assessment, student publishing, real-world experience, experiential education ... any of these terms can be applied to our political cartoon contest. It was a privilege to again collaborate with Dr. Alan Marcus of UCONN's Neag School of Education and Mr. Bob Englehart of the Hartford Courant to sponsor a Political Cartoon Contest. Mr. Englehart's editor at the Hartford Courant proposed the topic of the 2008 election. Top entries were published in the Courant and can be viewed here.

In preparation for the contest Mr. Englehart came to Bloomfield High School and conducted a cartoon drawing seminar for our students. It was an amazing experience to watch Mr. Englehart at work and to have him critique some of the student's projects.

Pizza and Painting

Inspired by a desire to help students interact with art and develop a more sophisticated understanding of the elements of art I read Nancy G. Heller’s book “Why Painting is Like a Pizza; A Guide to Understanding Modern Art”. Synthesizing some of her ideas and working with the chef/teacher of our culinary arts program I created a program that combines the creation of personal pizzas with the evaluation of art and a field trip experience to the oldest public museum in the nation and local architectural landmarks. View the instructional powerpoint. We successfully used these lesson materials for several years with multple classes.

In conjunction with this series of classes I published (in-house) two work-booklets; one for student notes concerning the pizza-art connection and one concerning local landmarks and student work within the museum. View the museum workbook.

View students and the Culinary Arts instructor making pizzas and at the Wadsworth Atheneum.