collages

The term colage can conjure up images of a watered-down activity, with trite ideas and pasting from Scholastic Readers. However, I have come up with a few ideas for how to use and improve collages.

Ideas for Collages

1. Create a collage that represents a poem or a novel - have students include the mood, theme, ideas
2. Create a collage for a difficut, interconnected concept in social studies (like globalization or industrialization) showing how they see that concept in our world
3. In a math lesson, students can create collages for shapes, patterns, fractions, or other math concepts they see in their world
4. Students can make picture mosaics, with various colors and textures and then have a philosophical discussion about reality, truth or diversity
5. Create a collage telling one's mood, feelings or life story

Advice for Improving Collages

1. Let students take them home if they need to
2. Have students bring in a ton of magazines from all sorts of interests
3. Preview the magazine - censor it if you need, meaning you might have to pull out a few inappropriate pages
4. Make sure the addresses are cut out of all covers
5. Use paint on the white spaces and give students an opportunity to be creative
6. Make sure students write reflections explaining their collages - an easy, engaging way to add writing to an artistic endeavor
7. Encourage group members to talk about their collages as they work on them or occasionally create group or partner collages that force dialogue