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Kaley McGrew
ART 133 Section 5
Professor Amber Ward
22 October 2015
Unit Paper 4: Play
In a school setting, play is essential to a childs learning experience. The studios
we did in class were great examples of ways to implement play in the classroom and
incorporate the idea of free choice, which is the antithesis of teaching for many people. It
is important to understand that although structure is essential in a classroom setting, there
should also be moments where children are able to think critically and make their own
decisions through play. The multimodal messages studio helped me do just that.
Although the initial directions were to create a collage that depicted play, I ended up
finding that my pieces had more meaning behind them such as making fun of makeup in
the media. Klein States in her article, Humor can assist positively in managing ones
emotional life (p.202). This is significant because play not only gets a child to think
critically, but it can also be therapeutic.
In my own classroom I could see encouraging critical thinking through play by
asking the children to make a collage, much like the ones we did in class. I would
probably pick three terms such as exaggeration, disguise, and transportation, define them
and then let them choose which one of the three techniques they wanted to implement.
Then I would ask them to come up in front of the class and explain what technique they
used and their thinking behind their piece to encourage further critical thinking.
Reference
Klein, S. (2014). Humor and contemporary product design. In D. Chario & R. Baccolini
(Eds.), Gender and humor: International and interdisciplinary perspectives (pp.
201-211). New York, NY: Routledge.

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