Unit Rationale: From Form to Light As summer was dwindling away and the school year was rapidly approaching, I found myself eagerly awaiting the opportunity to stand in front of a class and begin teaching. The prospect of guiding the class through an artistic journey was very exciting to me, but also unnerving. I found myself mulling the same questions over and over again: What is my goal in teaching? What do I truly want students to learn? What is my overarching goal that motivates me to give these students the best experience possible? These questions made me realize that my initial educational purpose in teaching is to prove to students that they do not need to be an incredible draftsman or realistic painter to be an artist. If my students believe that they are not good artists, then they will not reach their potential and will give minimal effort in class. Therefore, my initial purpose was to shatter the assumed notion that because students were not technically gifted in drawing that they cannot be successful artists. These realizations led me to develop a unit that was intended to prove to students that they are capable of creating aesthetically appealing art work because there are multiple methods of doing so. To accomplish this purpose, students were first assigned the cave art project which required them to refine their drawing skills, and to practice designing an eye catching composition. Essentially, this first project incorporates academic principles and has served to teach students how to incorporate the elements and principles of design into their artwork. Following this, students were introduced to color theory and the work of legendary artist Claude Monet. I taught them how he changed the art world, and made the point that a person does not have to paint or draw traditionally to achieve success. Students learned to distinguish between Impressionist and Academic art, and had experience in creating and filling in a color wheel. This brief introduction to color theory exists to slowly gradate the class from realistic depiction, to creating a composition based upon color usage and effective use of space. Next, students were required to combine their knowledge of perspective and color; the haystack project is a medium between drawing to capture realism, and painting to capture light. Both of these elements were required for this project, as students had to create four drawings of haystacks and use a different color scheme and set of materials for each sketch. The final project of this unit called for students to create a print using nothing but color. It is the final step where students had completely eliminated drawing from the equation. I am no longer requiring students to be able to draw in order to complete a project; rather, I am requiring students to apply the skills they have been equipped with to excel beyond their expectations. The first project existed to give students an understanding of the elements and principles of design, to force students to think about composition, and to begin introducing students to color theory. The second project existed to directly involve students in color theory; students created a color wheel and physically experienced the color interactions of the primary, secondary, tertiary, analogous and complementary colors. The third project required students to combine the skills they learned from projects one and two; they had to draw haystacks realistically using detail and perspective and color them in using various color schemes. The final project existed for students to combine all of their knowledge and to be able to create an image using nothing but color. My intentions have been to provide students with the knowledge and skills they need to create a visually appealing art work, and to give them an understanding that they can use nothing but color to succeed as an artist. Ultimately, I had students who did not consider themselves artists at the beginning of the year end up producing finished products they never thought they were capable of producing. They learned to use the tools they have at their disposal to creatively engineer composition, form, shape and color. This unit has been a success in that students were provided with a new framework for creating art work, and were given a new perspective on what it means to be an artist.