High School

Artwork: Olivia, Anxious Alien.

The Essential Question
How can we use art to connect with ourselves and regulate our emotions?

Objectives
Students will learn that art can be a way for them to connect with themselves and self-regulate. Students will also demonstrate their skills with line and value.

Materials
paper, markers, gel pens, permanent markers, crayons, colored pencils, sticky notes or small slips of paper for assessment reflection

Procedures
1. As a warmup exercise, review the elements of art.
2. Share the following information with students: social-emotional health is when a person is able to recognize the different emotions within themselves, and they have the ability to regulate them when needed. A well-regulated person is able to connect and communicate with others in appropriate ways. Explain that art-making has been proven to help people de-stress or regulate their emotions.
3. Ask students to draw an extraterrestrial creature that reflects how they are feeling at this moment. Are they irritable? What would that look like? Whatever students feel, ask them to express that in their extraterrestrial drawing.
4. As students draw, encourage a variety of line and value, and discuss how colors can also help to express the feeling being depicted.
5. When students are finished with their drawings, give them an exit slip (a sticky note will work) and ask them to write how they are feeling after completing the project. Students can leave their name off the slip if they prefer to remain anonymous.

Assessment
Did students draw a unique extraterrestrial creature? Did students include color, value, and at least two types of line?

Shalita Compton is an art teacher at Fleming County High School in Wallingford, Kentucky.