The Spiral Workshop Curriculum website provided a lot of great examples of projects and themes. My interest was captured by the (Dis)Order group. I love the idea that students are exploring the types of disorder they might encounter in the world. The project in which they look at the end of the world based on the Mayan 2012 calendar is awesome. Not only are students thinking critically about the paranoia of the phenomenon but they are also considering the chaos that would ensue if the prediction is true. This provides opportunities for both critical thinking and the observation and the creative/imaginative process of representing the unknown. Provided sufficient research is included in the unit, I think that students could make really strong connections with apocalyptic-related events. It was said that they looked at an endless list of life-threatening disasters such as "hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, meteor strikes, biological experiments gone wrong, wars of mass destruction, global warming". The history of apocalyptic speculation and the cold war possibility of nuclear war are also revisited to remind students that this 2012 speculation is nothing new, but an on-going world-wide paranoia of the upcoming end of the world.
In Chapter 4, a few of the big ideas suggested to be explored are: Transformation, Disruption and Illogical Combination. I think that when students are creating their apocalyptic-themed art that all of these Big Ideas could be used to their full potential. In Chapter 5, Walker discusses the importance of making boundaries for art-making. It is important that boundaries are somehow set in either media, formal qualities, subject matter, style or technique so students don't feel too overwhelmed by the possibilities. I think that setting such boundaries would be especially important in a unit based on the (Dis)Order theme because the theme itself allows for endless subject-related opportunities.
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