Writing and drawing activities can often be used as opportunities for students to be inspired by works of art and creating responses, interpretations or connecting ideas to their own lives. Sometimes a great activity can serve as an icebreaker and an introduction to an overarching theme. Especially with a theme like Identity, students often need to explore how the concept relates to their own lives, before they are able to apply it to looking at artwork. Many times when students arrive to MoMA, they have never been to our museum or any museum before. Especially for older students, an activity like this can not only help them to feel comfortable, but it can immediately make clear that their opinions, ideas and what they bring to the table, matters. I want you to think about three words that represent you and represent your identity. So on the piece of paper in front of you, with your pencil write down three words. And we are not going to share this so we are going to talk about what words you use. So go ahead and start. Identity is a theme we often plan our lessons around at MoMA, with students aged 13 and up. It's a universal theme that many artists explore in their work, while also being a universal idea that many students can relate to. In order to introduce the concept of identity in art, we'll ask students to first reflect on their own identity. Ask students to write down three words they think of when they think of their own identity. We don't ask students to share the specific words, but we do ask them what kinds of words they wrote down. For example, do the words relate to their heritage, where they live, or their hobbies? After a short time sharing, we'll ask students to scratch out one of the words. Again, without having to reveal the actual word, we ask them how it feels to lose one of the items on their identity list. Are they comfortable with the two words they have left? I crossed out the one that was least like me. so. I thought about it and I said to myself, like, which one have I not followed all the time. And so I crossed off the one that I don't really follow to a T. Okay. While the other two I do all the time. The other one is most of the time and all the time. So its a process of elimination. In a sense yeah. Which one is not as close as the others. Ok good! The last step is to scratch off a second word, leaving just one. Again, we'll ask how they feel about the one word that remains. I chose the word that would allow me to be both of the ones that I crossed off. I thought that if I chose that one word, it isn't exclusionary. I can still become the other two things I put down. I chose the word that I was actually least comfortable with describing myself at first. I realized between the two I had left one word was a chapter that was coming, or it is something that has been engrained in my life for a while. And the other word is something that is just coming into my life. So I figured, I'm gonna roll with it. In finishing up this activity, I ask the students to reflect on the activity itself. What did they notice about how they construct their own identity? Does that construct have more to do with how they see themselves, or how others see them? Did they notice how attached they became to those words and how difficult it was to lose some? Yeah I realized that I had just picked the first three words that just came to my head. Yeah, so I didn't realize or really think that they would have too much attachment. But then I realized I was trying to get rid of all three of them that they were terms that people have described me as and that I would describe myself as, I do actually have a connection with. Going around listening to everyone talk about the word, without saying it was really interesting because there was a certain theme throughout all of them like every time you were talking about the word there was a similarity. I ended up choosing words that I wanted to project myself as even though it is not verbally I would put that out there. But it is something that I would identity myself with on a personal level. I agree with Billy because I think that it is also you yourself take a lot of forms and I think that what I was looking for was also things that I wanted to become or wanted to put out there. The Identity Icebreaker provides a great transition into exploring the concept of identity in works of art. Not only in regard to the subject matter, but the identities of the artists and ourselves as viewers. One way of expanding the understanding of a work of art is having the students add to it. In the Thought Bubbles activity, students write in what the subjects in a work of art are saying or thinking. After a full group discussion of an artwork, we'll hand out a reproduction of that artwork with blank thought bubbles over the heads of the subjects. Another option is to hand out a blank page with a large thought bubble, asking the students to write in what one subject is saying or thinking. Both of these examples give the students a chance to pair their imagination with information from the work of art. By imagining what a subject is saying or thinking, students get inside the head of the character. Their assessment of what the character is saying or doing gives them a deeper understanding of the work of art, while also giving them a chance to use their creative writing skills. This activity can be used for any student who can write fairly well. For very young students, a modification would be to ask them to draw what a character is thinking, instead of writing. The idea of artist's inspiration is one that we discuss a lot with students. In this activity, students will create a poem together inspired by the work of art they are looking at.  After discussing the work of art as a group, we'll ask students to write down one word on a post-it. For students ages 5-10, we might guide their word selection, by asking them to write a descriptive word or a word inspired by one of their senses. With these younger students, we would have one large piece of paper where they could stick all their words together. Then, as a group, we would create a specific order for the words, creating one large poem. Ok, green is a color and you can draw, what does that say? Art? Ok good. Green is a color and you can draw art. Blue, green, red, peach, dark green, smells bad, green, what does that word say? Blue, green, red, blue, green, red, peach, black, pink, it's green! It's magical! It looks green and looks blue. It's green and pink. It's smelly. Odd smell, dirty. Poop! Great Job! Let's give ourselves a silent round of applause! Students 11 and up will often write words that are more interpretive. We'll break these older students into  groups of about four or five, and ask them to compose a poem that incorporates all of the words. Another variation would be to have each student pass their word to the left. The recipient writes a sentence around that word, related to the work of art. Then, the students regroup to make poems with the sentences they've written. This activity gives students a structure for creating collaboratively, and reduces any anxiety they might have around writing a poem. The activity prompts are truly open-ended and the students learn first-hand the meaning of inspiration. Debate is one of our favorite activities to do with older students.  It's a great way to either begin or end a discussion of the work of art. To stage a debate, divide the students into two groups. We'll often assign each group to take a particular stance, but often two opposing positions will emerge from a full group discussion. I give the students 5-10 minutes to gather together proof in defense of their position. The trick is, this proof must be grounded in observable artwork details—things that can be seen or sensed by everybody. As a team, they huddle up before the debate, list out the evidence, and make sure they are all on the same page. Then, as the debate begins, I ask one team to start with one point. The second team then responds with their counterpoint. Teams will go back and forth, sharing the proof of their stance. I disagree, because a picture is worth a thousand words, although this could go many ways. Also a picture could just like have as many amount of ways. So they could have drawn something that is completely irrelevant to this but in some aspects, its is the same topic. So true a picture can say a thousand words, but at the same time it kinda only deals with one specific topic. When you read it you can kinda have different viewpoints. I will often wrap up the activity with two questions.  First, I ask if students think one team "won," or if one of the teams has a stronger argument. Then, I ask if any students have an opinion that is different from the team they were on. Almost always, students will feel connected to the opinion they were asked to defend. This activity can be very successful for many reasons. It asks students to look closely at the work of art and the position they are given guides their looking. Students have to work together and a sense of camaraderie comes from working together towards a single goal. And very importantly, this activity illustrates to the students that there isn't one correct interpretation or impression of a work of art. Through this activity, they get the sense that there is room for multiple points of view and they are encouraged to listen to and support each other.
