This year my sixth graders have spent a lot of time creating art that says something. We started with narrative self portraits and focused on the element of storytelling in artmaking. Later, they created a surreal scene and then, for this project, looked at the art of Keith Haring and created a piece of artwork based on a social justice issue of their choice. Their thoughtfulness and creativity amazes me!
After looking at various types of street art, we took inspiration from street artists who create stickers and posters and make comments about popular culture. After viewing Wierd Al's "Word Crimes" video my students could certainly relate to seeing and using word crimes on a regular basis. Some students even used real word crimes they found in their texting history. We used the idea of "word crimes" as our message and each student created four 2.5"x2.5" magnets which will be placed in a magnetic surface in our school. I love the way this project makes such a real life connection. 
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