[Artists-Making-Art] Cross-posted: Graduate student requesting assistance in determining accessible assignments for creative arts in social work course

[Miranda B.]

Hi Everyone,
This message is cross-posted to multiple lists, so please disregard if
you’ve already seen this elsewhere.
I am a graduate student pursuing my Masters of social work with a
clinical specialization. My degree is online, and one of the elective
courses offered through my university is a creative arts course.
Assignments in this course are not as much focused on the product as
much as the thoughts, feelings, moods, and relationship between the
studied art forms and healing through expression. I will begin this
course on October 21, and I’m in discussion with my university’s
disability services office that is more than willing to support me in
successfully engaging in this course. I’m meeting with the online
disability services coordinator (who also happens to have a background
in creative arts) tomorrow to further this discussion.
With all of this in mind, I am coming to all of you for any tips in
completing assignments in the following art forms. I will provide a
final note of introduction in that I do have access to Aira. I will
also share my own initial thoughts regarding assignment accessibility.

Week 1 assignment: Expressing “in-the-moment” feelings/moods
throughout the week via quick artistic expression (drawing) and
reflect in writing what it was like to complete the artistic
assignment, interpretations of mood/thoughts when creating the art,
and self-evaluation of completed artwork. It should be noted here that
the written journals follow the same/similar formats throughout the
course.

Week 2 assignment: Draw life as a line, journey or roadmap, focusing
on past, present, and future. Include images (from magazines for
instance) and things/people/places/events (through a map for
instance), and art/writing can be combined. For this assignment, I
considered creating a PowerPoint presentation. Any other ideas?

Week 3 assignment: Draw a mandala of your life with the goals of
Centering, focusing, expression of feelings through design, color, and
images

Week 4 assignment: Planning a flash mob about a problem (this one
looks fun and accessible, but I’d love any creative ideas or sharing
of experiences if you’ve planned a flash mob before!)

Week 5: Make a mask (Focus is on drama/theatre and the use of masks in
counseling; this seems accessible, but I’d love thoughts/ideas)

Week 6 class discussion assignment: Documenting an economic/social
problem in my local community through photography (use Aira and/or
find pictures online???)
Week 6 journal assignment: Select 4+ photos of yourself, the stories
they tell, and the meaning they have for you (Aira for choosing
photos?)
Week 6 paper: Movie critique (I found 4 movies from the assigned list
that I can choose from with AD)

Week 7 (Music, dance, and movement) journal assignment:
Draw or have someone draw an outline of your body as you lie in the
position that best describes how you’re feeling on a large enough
sheet of paper for the assignment. Attach the body outline to the wall
and consider mapping areas of happiness/sorrow or pain, recognizing
colors and images as seen/felt. It seems they want to focus on visual
representation, but I don’t believe that’s necessary to get the point
of the assignment. Thoughts?
Considering the title of this week as noted above “music, dance, and
movement”, might there be a more accessible form of artistic
expression for this assignment?

Week 8 assignments: Journaling and poetry (completely accessible as-is)

Any thoughts and ideas regarding these assignments and my involvement
in this course are very much appreciated.
Thanks in advance for your time and assistance, and have a wonderful week!

Best, Miranda