Day 2: The Art of Flags

Today was a short day at school because the French only go to school on Wednesdays for half of the day, from 8:00 until noon. The Art teacher at Lycée Jean Racine in is a wonderful, calm, and interesting man named Mickaël Dufossé. He prepared a lesson for his  most advanced Art students that would allow them to explore artistic expression and national symbols while working with our students from Westmoore. So we began the lesson with a presentation by Monsieur Dufossé about the art of Jasper Johns and Pierre Soulages. The challenge for the students was to create a fusion of the flags of France, the United States, Picardy, Oklahoma and/or the official seals of Oklahoma City and Montdidier, turning these official symbols into personal expressions of artistic creation, inspired by the style, techniques, and products of Jasper Johns and Pierre Soulanges.

Here are some examples of the works by these famous artists that Monsieur Dufossé shared with the students:

Jasper Johns

Pierre Soulanges

Once the challenge was given to the students and they were given access to a wide selection of tools and materials, they began to work in six different groups to plan their art project. Each group had at least one French student. It was a great opportunity for all the Westmoore students to use their interpersonal and language skills to negotiate new relationships and share ideas using both French and English in a common creative process. Here are the pictures of their collaborative work during the two-and-a-half hour session:

Caroline wasn't with us because her host family took her to Paris for the day, since her host father would only have today to spend time with Caroline and the family. She'll have great tales of Paris and we're certain she'll be disappointed that she didn't get to start the art project with us. But, then again, SHE GOT TO GO TO PARIS!

Of course, Madame Worster (we're calling her "Madame" now) got in on the game with her own personal response to the art challenge. Hint: It involves Langston Hughes, her trip to France, dreams deferred and realized. Yes, she is brilliant!

This project is only half-way complete. We will have three more hours to complete the art work next week, so stay tuned...

The rest of the day was spent freely with each host family. It would be great if our students would share in their comments how they spent their afternoon and evening on Wednesday.

An interview with our students appeared on France 3, the regional television news for the Picardy region. The next blog will share the video clip of the report.