Essential Questions: 

 

• How and why do we manipulate the values and meanings of things? 

• What journey does an object take before it enters into our lived experience?

 

      We encounter thousands of physical objects every day, some that carry significance to us personally and others that we walk past without a second look. We tell stories about these objects, we assign them narratives and values, but rarely do we examine the journey that these objects have made in order to enter into our lives. 

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      In this unit, students examined an object that had piqued their curiosity to uncover its story, its journey, and its essential nature. Working their way through a variety of artistic and literary mediums including poetry, flash fiction, rhetoric, and persuasive essay, students explored the intricate stories that their object carried with it and attempted to bring these stories to light in a collection of written pieces in their "Object Portfolios." 

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      For their final project, students examined their artifact from our consumer history, made a reproduction of that object, and altered it to capture their understanding of its historical significance. Along with learning the art of persuasion and argumentation, students practiced casting, mold building, and sculptural techniques in order to recreate and alter their objects.

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