From Durer to Die Brucke to Crazy Critters

The talk in the teacher's lounge last Thursday was all about how nuts the kids were. It was the last of day of class before spring break. I had agonized the night before about my lessonplans. If I followed my carefully planned sequence we were set to make Cornell Notes on a slide lecture about the role of the German Expressionist group, Die Brucke, in updating the woodcut process by using linoleum.
The students had completed an internet visit to the Brucke Museum the day before, following a lecture on Albrecht Durer and woodcut printmaking earlier in the week. I didn't want to lose this learning, but more importantly I didn't want to lose my students' interest.
Thinking about Durer's wonderfully imaginative woodcut print of a rhinoceros, which we had examined for his use of line to show texture in the rhino hide, gave me an idea for a fun and silly project that had the potential to hold the student's interest. It also had the potential to bomb! Would they think it was dumb? Well, it was dumb, so I told them that right up front.
After a quick review of the previous day's learning we started our silly project. The students folded their paper in fourths, and were told, without explanation, to draw the rear end of a four legged animal in the first box. This was good for a chuckle, at least.
Next, they folded this portion in to hide the first drawing and handed their paper on to another student who was to draw the mid-rear section with two hind legs. By now I thought most of the kids would catch on to what we were doing, but it turns out that what I thought was a classic elementary school activity was unfamiliar to the vast majority of my students. My lucky day!
We continued folding, passing and drawing, with admonishments not to peek. By the last section they'd caught on and were buzzing with anticipation. And, of course, when they finally unfolded the drawing it was great fun to watch their reactions.
Turns out the activity was a bomb, with laughter exploding all over the classroom!
(The project we're leading up to, after the break, is "Fins, Feather and Fur: Animal Textures in Linocut prints." Look for complete lessonplans this spring on my website, FunArtLessons.com)