Urgent Museum Notice

Creating a Prototype

Painting of a light-skinned woman wearing safety goggles and working with heavy machinery in an industrial warehouse setting. She wears short sleeves under her overalls and her hair is tied up with a kerchief. In the background, other light-skinned figures work on airplane parts.
Art, Books, and Creativity
Grade Level
3 to 5 6 to 8 9 to 12
Subject Area
English/Language Arts Visual Art
Download Lesson 11

Lesson 11

Two 45-minute periods. Students will learn that artists and writers use tools to help them explore and test new ideas and designs. Students will make prototypes of their artists’ books and plan where the text and images will go on each of the pages. Based on their prototypes, students will decide if revisions are needed. 

Key Connections

Visual Arts

  • Artists create prototypes to explore and test new designs.
  • Artists may alter some aspect of their work in the process of creating a prototype.

Writing

  • Writers create drafts and dummy books to refine their writing and plan the placement of text in their books.
  • Writers may alter some aspects of their work in the process of creating drafts and dummy books.

Instructional Objectives

Visual Arts and Writing

  • Students will create prototypes of their chosen book forms.
  • Students will plan the placement of text and images on the covers and pages of the books.
  • Students will plan changes to the text, images, and/or book forms if needed.

Instructional Plan

Observe

Have a few prototype books made from scrap paper to show students as examples to introduce students to the concept of a prototype. Creating a prototype helps an artist figure out how to make the book form, learn whether their chosen materials will work, and decide how the different elements will be arranged in the book. If any examples of a prototype and its completed form are available, show those to students as well so they can see the kinds of modifications they might make while creating their final book.

  • Ask students to point out how the prototypes are different from other completed artists’ books they have seen. Use some of the following questions to guide the discussion.
  • What kinds of changes do you notice from the prototype to the completed book?
  • Why do you think the artist made these changes?
  • Do the changes affect the meaning of the book? How?
  • Why is the prototype made with scrap paper?

Create: Artist’s Book Prototype

Supplies

  • Student journals
  • Pencils or pens
  • Scrap computer or copy paper
  • Tape, glue, staplers
  • Rulers
  • Scissors

Activity

Create a Book-Form Prototype
  1. Tell students to use the materials list and sketches they made in Lesson 10 and gather enough paper for their prototypes. As they begin building their prototype, remind them that it doesn’t matter if the book construction is a little sloppy. The prototype is where they figure out how to put the books together and practice gluing, taping, and binding.
  2. Once the book-form prototypes have been made, ask students review the plans they created in Lesson 10 and decide where the text and images will go on each page. Have students compare the plan they made to their prototypes, making sure there are enough pages for the images and text.
Place Text and Images
  1. To help plan the placement of text in their books, have students write all the text they chose in the previous lesson onto one page or type it into the computer. Then have them circle the words or sentences that will be placed together on a page. Have them write the page number by the circled words.
  2. On those same sheets of paper, have students write where the images will go. For example, they could write “image #1” within a group of circled sentences to show they will be on the same page or between two groupings to show the illustration will have a page to itself. Some pages might have only one word, while others could have three paragraphs. Some pages might have only illustrations or only words.
  3. Students can look at the text and images they have selected and decide if it is enough or too much to fit in their books. If necessary, have students renumber the pages to include all the text and images or revise the amount of each that will be placed in the books.

Reflect

Have students respond to one of the following prompts in their journals.

  • While making my prototype, I learned….
  • My ideas for my book changed because….
  • I’m still curious about….

Go Deeper

Check out related writing objectives, lesson extensions, and more in the comprehensive PDF lesson plan.

Vocabulary

Prototype

A prototype is an original type or form of something that serves as an example for making something new. It is usually made to test the design before producing the new object.

Dummy books

Dummy books are made by authors and illustrators to show how a book will look when it is published and to show where the text and images will go on each page.