Lesson 1: Building Coil Pots

Community Connections | 9/5/2022

Students will explore 3D media manipulation by creating a coil pot.

While planning the first lesson for the group, we were unsure how to tackle differentiation and scaffolding the expectations because we didn't know the abilities of the students we were going to work with.

We decided on an introductory lesson into pottery to better understand our students and how they interact with the media, what they like to do, what they don't, and what challenges they face within the arts. We agreed that coil pots were the most versatile activity they could to with clay. We all first made coil pots in elementary school and kept making them grade by grade and even in college.

We pre-proportioned chunks of clay per student and made three different example pots each at varying levels of completion, one was just a base, one had a few coils stacked on, and one was finished. Those dried overnight so that we could have more sturdy examples to show an pass around. Hilariously, the person who made the finished pot didn't slip-and-score very well and the top coil broke off during the demonstration. We used that as a teaching moment to show what happens if pottery is not properly slipped and scored.

Students were instructed to take a section of their clay and flatten it to make the base, then make long, even coil "snakes", score both the base and the coils with the provided fork, slip the base with the sponge, and gently press down the coils while building them up.

While watching the students work, we noticed that we didn't demonstrate well enough that the coils must stack on top of each other to build vertically as

opposed to laying the coils around the previous stack. If we taught this again we would demonstrate matching the score lines in the base and the coil so we make sure it stays vertical.

The students finished with about half the time left over which was unexpected. We had not planned any more activities for the day because we had planned to observe and learn from the students as to make better plans in the future.

For the time being we took out big sheets of paper and marks for those who wanted to move to more two-dimensional creation and brought building toys to an unused table for those who still wanted to work structurally. We took that extra time to talk to the students and get to know them, as well as the paraprofessionals who assisted them.