I now wholeheartedly understand the struggle of trying to explain your admiration for an image in only 280 characters, a feat twice as hard prior to 2017 when the character limit sat at a measly 140. To put our study of art elements and principles, along with our discussion of copyright, into practice, we were first tasked us with producing and tweeting our own images representing the six elements of art. These images all used the same hashtag, #WDC23022, forming a collective project where we can view everyone’s interpretation of the elements. With the principles now in consideration, we then selected the best image out of all posted to retweet with a caption explaining our choice, along with reaching out to the original artist for permission to post to a photo sharing website. Not only did cutting out over half my original caption present as a surprising challenge, we were also put into small groups, asked to select an image we all agreed stood out from the rest.
Group work maintains the worst reputation, not just in middle and high school classrooms, but also in university lecture halls across the country. No one enjoys picking up the slack of those who treat group projects as an excuse to skate by without contributing. While I’ve grown to confidently include myself in the “I hate groups” category after too many late nights finishing everyone else’s conveniently forgotten work, I find my experience collaborating in this course fairly painless so far. Almost everyone responds promptly after the project gets assigned and provides meaningful feedback and suggestions. I noticed the casual back and forth banter between my group members helped us reach a conclusion we all agreed on in an efficient, timely manner. Everyone acknowledged my own ideas, and I made sure in turn to provide my own insight on theirs. Though we initially all chose very different photos, our varying perspectives coming together eventually made us realize we all enjoyed the same one. As someone who often works with departments outside of my own in my career, I’ve ultimately noticed maturity level and work ethic play a huge role in the success of a group, both of which present themselves well in my classmates.
