Peer Relationships and Discovery Lesson Plan

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Overview: This lesson centers on a collaborative “speed-creating” activity designed to help students build connections through art. Rotating between clay, colored pencil, markers, and watercolor stations, students created four quick representative portraits (symbolic—each representing a different partner and using a new medium every time. This fast-paced, playful structure encouraged students to observe one another closely, experiment across materials, and begin forming a sense of classroom community through creative interaction.

Grade Level: Created for late middle to early high school, but adaptable for any grade level!

Essential Question: How can we represent others, ourselves, and our community in different ways?

Learning Objectives:

• Students will learn how personal identity can be expressed through symbols, imagery, and artistic choices.

• Students will represent peers using symbolic or realistic approaches based on partner conversations and generative theme lists.

• Students will use multiple media to explore how materials influence meaning-making.

• Students will build community through observation, dialogue, and collaborative creation.

Materials (can be changed based on available materials!)

• Air-dry clay

• Watercolor palettes, brushes, water cups

• Colored pencils & graphite

• Markers & ink pens

• Paper for watercolor and drawing

• Tables/stations arranged by medium

Lesson Flow:

Warm-Up

Given a 30-second timer for each category, students complete 5 quick prompts to reflect on personal identity. Each should list:

Students should aim for 5, but this is not a requirement; it is to encourage quick and varied thoughts.

• 5 interests

• 5 strengths

• 5 things they love

• 5 favorite things to do

• 5 personality traits/characteristics

These lists serve as symbol guides, helping the partner choose imagery, shapes, colors, or objects that represent the student meaningfully.

The Hook

Sort your students into groups and ask them to discuss the question: "What's your Hidden Talent?" They will then be tasked with deciding who has the most interesting/unique hidden talent. The groups will share their favorite with the class...with an optional demonstration.

Very fun way to get to know students and give everyone a laugh!

Introduction to Activity

Explain the activity and reconnect to the guiding question:

“How can we represent others, ourselves, and our community in different ways?”

Students will rotate through four rounds of partner-based portrait-making.

For each round, students will:

• Work with a new partner

• Use a new medium

Medium Stations:

• Air-Dry Clay

• Watercolor

• Colored Pencils & Graphite

• Markers & Ink

Activity

Set-Up

• Each table contains one designated medium.

• Students begin at different stations.

Rules

• You cannot have the same partner twice.

• You cannot use the same medium twice.

Each Round (Partner #1, #2, #3, #4)

1. Students find a new partner at a new medium station.

2. Partners exchange their generative theme lists.

3. Students choose how to represent their partner:

   • Symbolically: turning list items into icons, motifs, objects, colors, or metaphors

   • Realistically: focusing on likeness and physical characteristics

   • Hybrid: mixing realism with symbolic elements

4. Students create timed portraits that show their partner’s identity in a meaningful way.

5. While working, students discuss:

   • What symbols best represent their partner

   • What they share in common

   • How similarities or differences can appear in the artwork

   • How their choices reflect community or connection

   • OPTIONAL: give students interesting questions to discuss while creating to keep them talking and building relationships! Some examples I've used:

     • If you were a food, what would you be and why?

     • Would you rather be a chicken or a goat?

     • Would you rather fight 1 gorilla-sized chicken or 10 chicken-sized gorillas?

     • If you had a time machine, when and where would you go?

     • If you could have your pool made out of anything, what would it be?

     • Are you a pirate, knight, samurai, ninja, or cowboy?

     • If you were a kitchen appliance, which would you be and why?

Conclusion/Reflection

Invite students to share or journal about:

• Which symbolic choices they made and why

• Which medium best helped them express their partner’s identity

• What they learned about their peers through the process

• How symbolic representation differs from physical likeness

• How their community can be shown through shared symbols or themes