Hello Sydney,
I have been teaching in universities in Mexico and have also taught  
to teenagers and children. Excuse me if my language is not accurate.  
I wil try to explain.
In my experience, teenagers tend to rationalize what they draw  
(well.. don't we all?). As I often observed, they come to a point  
where they "decide"what the object of drawing looks like, hence they  
stop looking at it and construct the drawing from their own mental  
image of the object. Then they get lost trying to draw it. This is  
when boundaries become ambiguous. I believe that drawing reflects an  
organized train of thought. When you cannot draw from observation,  
you are getting lost in your ideas or are not focused.
So, what I do, is I give directions to very "organized"observation.
I start with a simple object... a ceramic white, empty mug... which  
seems a bit boring to teenagers who think they are good at drawing...  
then I like to prove that the assumptions they have about the mug are  
all wrong...

I start a series of drawings with the same boring cup:
I ask them to look at it for 15 seconds, then they must draw it  
without looking at it... for whatever time it takes them.. not more  
than 20 minutes...
Then I ask them to comment, and almost all of them realize that they  
didn't quite get the mug... although all of them (in the best case  
scenario) are perfectly able to draw A mug...none of them really drew  
THIS mug.
So back to the paper:
  This time i force observation for time lapses:
5 seconds observing, 5 secs. drawing.... and so on until they pretty  
much get a finished drawing. I usually stop before they finish  
because I want to keep them interested and wanting to finish a good  
representation of the object.
Then I ask them to draw without lifting the pencil ffom the paper in  
the same manner of time lapse...
Then I ask that they draw the object without looking at the paper and  
without lifting the pencil... This is a great way (i have found) for  
them to understand boundaries...

I have them do these short exercises every time, as part as settling- 
down, warming-up process beginning each class.. they all complain, of  
course, but every time I ask them to go deeper into the object. So,  
the first classes they only get the borders, shapes and some ceramics  
imperfection.. and gradually they discover all sorts of shading and  
reflections...which they are NOT allowed to fill in and turn into  
shading... they are supposed to find all the edges of each shade and  
reflection... And of course, I have a wide range of different shapes  
of mugs and cups..to keep it a little less boring each time...
Once they -visualy- understand this, I move on to asking them to find  
the darker shade, the middle shade and the brightest shade of  
white... and from this point on, they are allowed to shade their  
object...but only if they locate closed boundries of shading areas  
within it...

Depending on the group and if this seems to be advancing fast, we  
move to glass objects.. simple ones at first, then more complex...  
like sugar and salt shakers, with metalic tops).

If the simple tracing seems to not be working, I ask them to bring a  
piece of transparent acrilic and water based markers... then they  
place the acrilic over an object and trace the 3D object directly on  
the acrilic, to start understanding boundaries... For this I use a  
more complex object, so I ask them to draw one another's faces.


At the end of the year, not only do they get sick and tired of white  
ceramics, but they end up with a large and interesting portfolio to  
show.





On Apr 9, 2009, at 6:12 PM, Sydney E. Willcox wrote:

> Hello,
>
> My name is Sydney Willcox.I am a US high school art teacher  
> (Ceramics, drawing, painting & 2D Design) and part-time Design  
> Foundation Instructor at the University of Minnesota.
> I would like help with 3 concerns:
>
> I seek information about the UK art instruction exams in order to  
> improve my high school curriculum.
> I did find a site but then lost it, that had previous years  
> "intermediate" exam questions.
> If anyone has and is willing to share this information,I appreciate  
> your assistance.Our art classes do not have the consistent approach  
> that (at least so it looks from a distance)the UK schools do.
>
> Second,does anyone have suggestions about how to get 14-18 year old  
> teens to consistently employ contrast in their images? My students  
> revert to ambiguous boundaries in their work despite layers of  
> lessons focusing on hard & soft boundary contrasts.
>
> Third, At sometime in the future, I would like to teach in the UK.  
> Where & how do I determine if my qualifications meet UK requirements?
> Thank-you Sydney E. Willcox
>