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Middle School PERK: Street Art
Middle School street art mural creation

 

In one of this semester’s Middle School PERK sessions, History Teacher Sean Nowicki’s students are taking a deep dive into the history and art of graffiti and mural painting. 

Available to students in grades six through 12, PERKs (Passion, Engagement, Reflection and Knowledge) are 60-minute blocks of time integrated into the school day each week, giving students the opportunity to dig deeper and discover new interests. Mr. Nowicki’s class was filled on the first day this PERK was announced.  

“This PERK is essentially about the intersection of art and history,” explains Nowicki. “The students were first taught about the history of wall art by heading on a journey that included paleolithic hand prints, ancient Roman jokes etched into walls, World War II and Kilroy, the invention of the spray paint can, the proliferation of graffiti on subway cars in NYC in the ‘70s, and finally, the commercial success of mural festivals around the world today.” 

Students came up with their own "tagger" names, replete with graphics and alternative meanings. “I taught them the basics of bubbling or tricking out their letters for that classic graffiti look. They loved learning how to do this!” continued Nowicki. Inspired by contemporary artists like Takashi Murakami and Space Invader, the students were asked to develop a mascot or character to work into their name designs.

“The culmination of all of this work is our classroom mural, in which each student has combined their designs into a group painting. Since the mural is going to live in a history classroom, our final layer of this project will be a historical map/timeline incorporating each student's work into a signature mural.”

Stay tuned for an update at the end of the semester with the finished mural.