Spiraling Curriculum, Sketchbooks, and Student Choice (Ep. 509)

In today’s episode of Art Ed Radio, Nadia Fernandez-Castillo joins the show to talk about how she built a strong, structured middle school art program rooted in a modern version of the Atelier model. After more than two decades in education and years of teaching middle school art, she shares how repetition, observation, sketchbook practice, and gradual student choice can work together to build both skills and confidence.

The conversation explores how a spiral curriculum can make complex ideas more approachable for teachers and more effective for students. Nadia explains why she starts with the basics, how she uses drills and repetition to help students improve, and why she believes artistic growth comes from practice rather than talent. She also shares how she balances structure with personal voice so students can develop technical skills without losing creativity.

Full episode transcript below.

Resources and Links

• • Join the Art of Ed Community
  • Listen to the Art Ed Radio episode on Atelier Training
  • Draw From Old Methods to Teach New K-12 Artists
  • How to Make Sketchbooks a Vital Part of Your Classroom
  • 100 Sketchbook Prompts Your Students Will Love

Transcript

Tim:

Nadia, welcome to the show. How are you?

Nadia:

I’m doing pretty well. How are you?

Tim:

Very well. People loved your presentation at the Art Ed Now conference in February, and we are really, really excited to have you on the podcast now. But for people who did not see you at the conference, can you give us a quick introduction? Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your teaching?

Nadia:

Sure, sure. My name is Nadia, and I’ve been teaching for about 23 years in the Miami-Dade County School District down in Miami, Florida. I’ve taught elementary school for about 12 years, and then I switched over to middle school, and I’ve been there ever since.

Tim:

Alright, very cool. And I always need to ask middle school teachers, what do you love about middle school? Because it’s something I could never do. Listeners to the podcast know my wife teaches middle school, she loves it, and I’ve never understood it. So what do you love about middle schoolers?

Nadia:

It’s so funny, because I usually get two reactions when I tell people that I teach middle school, and it’s funny you ask that question. It’s either, “Why?” and the other one is, “Oh my god, you’re a saint!” I think with middle school, it’s interesting because I tend to have a pretty dry personality in terms of humor. My humor’s dry, my humor’s a little sarcastic, and the kids get it. The kids kind of appreciate that. So I don’t know, maybe I’m immature. I like their humor. I think it’s silly. But really, to be serious, I think when we’re working with kids that age, they’re very impressionable.

What I remember in elementary school was you could draw a stick figure on the board and the kids would be like, “Oh my god!” And that was good for the ego, but for me personally, I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of it. I wanted this back and forth. When I had the opportunity to change to middle school and I saw what it was really about, which was that they’re still young enough to kind of mold, but they’re too old to baby.

Tim:

Yeah.

Nadia:

And you’re kind of preparing them for high school and for what’s coming. I saw that as an opportunity of, wow, I could really change someone’s mind about art at this stage. And that’s what drove me from that point on, and I’ve been doing this for 12 years now.

Tim:

Oh, I love that.

Nadia:

Yeah.

Tim:

I love hearing that. So now I wanted to bring you on because I wanted to get some insight into your program. You run an incredible program where you are, and you kind of frame your program around the modern version of the Atelier model. And by the way, for people listening, we did an entire episode on what is an Atelier, so I’ll link to that in the show notes if people need that background. But I want to ask you, what first drew you to that idea, and how did you evolve it or make it into something that works for a middle school setting?

Nadia:

Wow. Well, the Atelier model was something that I was introduced to while I was an undergrad at FIU, at Florida International University, years ago, many moons ago. My professor at the time was classically trained. He was very much into realism and portraiture and landscape, oil painting. I was introduced to oil painting with him. At the time, there was this kind of push toward conceptual art and a more modern understanding of art and creation, where at least where I was, there wasn’t that big emphasis on the basic realism skills that would make an artist a better conceptual artist. It was kind of frowned upon.

That program began through, funnily enough, the art education undergrad program. He brought that in.

He trained teachers. And since then, he’s developed it, and it’s become the way that it was easier for me to learn basic art skills through that master-versus-trainee style that the atelier helps bring together. The reason why I brought it in was because when I first started in middle school, I was floundering.

I didn’t know what to do. These kids had no idea what they were doing, and some of them were coming from lower SES backgrounds where the budgets don’t allow for an art teacher in an elementary school, and they’re absolutely clueless. I thought, I just can’t bring them into “let’s do a collage” or “let’s do a landscape” without them understanding the very basics in the elements of art and principles. So I had to bring it back to basics, and I saw the Atelier model and thought, wait, why don’t I just do what my professor was doing? Let’s do it this way.

So I tried it at the first middle school that I was at for about two years, and I saw that it had something, but I hadn’t really defined it. Then when I got to where I am currently, I was able to really refine it to where it’s just seamless. I start with line, and we just go from there. We go to color, color theory, and then space. It just starts to build. Sometimes we go back, and that’s why we mentioned at the conference that spiral curriculum, where sometimes you go backwards and sometimes you go forward.

Tim:

Right.

Nadia:

So for now, for example, we just finished oil pastel, but now we’re going back to line. We’re learning about pattern.

Okay. And we’re doing Zentangles and Zendoodles, and we’re learning all about that.

And we’re taking what we already learned prior and attaching it to something new.

Tim:

Okay, so let me ask you: when you bring in the idea of a spiral curriculum, for teachers who are maybe just starting or unfamiliar with these ideas, they hear things like Atelier model or spiral curriculum and immediately feel overwhelmed. What would you say to them to help them reframe those ideas or make them more approachable rather than intimidating?

Nadia:

I was watching sports with my husband, football or something, and I’m like, wait a minute, these guys do drills every day.

Tim:

Yeah.

Nadia:

And they practice every day. And these little league kids practice every day. So I took a page out of athletics and said, why don’t we just practice every day and practice these things? If you want to break it down to the very basics, it’s just having them repeat things until it becomes rote and something very natural for them, where they take the pencil and are able to just draw what they see.

Trust me, getting that block of “How do I draw XYZ?” to change to “How would I reframe or lay out this composition?”—changing that vocabulary starts with the basics. So I took that page out of athletics and said, if you want to make it really simple, a spiral curriculum is basically starting with something, moving on to something else, and then possibly going back and reviewing something that was already done in order to then move ten paces forward. And with the Atelier model, all it is is drilling. All it is is just, let’s keep practicing those skills.

It’s funny because one of the questions I get from my students, especially in middle school, is that they start comparing themselves, obviously, because it’s middle school. They’re looking at the other person, and there might be a handful of kids that are into anime and drawing all these characters.

They’re OCs, and they’re doing all these great things.

And they’re like, how come they can do it? And I just turn around and say, do they draw every day?

Yes, I do draw every day.

Because there’s no such thing as giftedness. There’s no such thing as talent. Everything’s learned.

Tim:

Yeah. Okay, so can we dive into that a little bit more, just the idea of repetition and drills? Because like you said, it’s all about the sequence, all about the practice. So can you talk more about that clear skill progression and the way you develop that? Can you talk about how that’s done and how that changes the way students see themselves as artists?

Nadia:

That’s a good question, and I think that if we start with the very basics and get them really confident with just that repetition, once they repeat it enough, it’s like athletics: they make that goal when they’re playing soccer, and they feel confidence, so they’re going to want to keep going. Now that they see, oh, this is not as hard as I thought it was, this is not some strange formula, this is just learning how to observe, learning how to see differently, learning how to see darks and lights and tones and patterns and values.

I think it’s really important. I played piano, too, for like 13 years, and I remember my piano teacher. If anyone knows about music, there are dynamics in the composition. You’ll have some moments where it wants you to play louder, softer, faster, slower. And I remember trying not to do what was written.

Tim:

Okay.

Nadia:

I wanted to do it this way. And my piano teacher turned around and said, listen, learn how to do it the way the composer wrote it. When you become the master, then you break your rules. And I adhere to that in the classroom. So when I teach, I have them wait. I know you want to do all of this, but in order to do all of this, we need to do this first.

It’s just slowing them down so that when they see that what I’m telling them actually leads to the product they’re getting, they’re like, oh. And then I love it because they get a weekly sketchbook homework, and usually I alternate between something that’s observation and then the next week it’s something using their imagination or something they come up with on their own, so they don’t get bogged down with all that observation, because that can get very stagnant too.

So once they do, like I’ll tell them, draw a spoon for the week. Take a spoon out, put it in front of you, draw it. Sometimes that light bulb turns on with the first one. Sometimes it happens with draw cups and glasses, or draw this or that. But it’s really great to see them when I’m checking their sketchbooks every week, because of that practice and because of those basics. They come back, and I’m like, look, this is fantastic. And you see their confidence. That’s it. And then from that point on, they just speed right through.

Tim:

Yeah, yeah.

Nadia:

Okay, so I want to talk a little bit more about the setup here, because I know a lot of teachers are afraid that if you’re spending too much time on observation, too much time on learning those skills through repetition, then you lose out on student voice, you lose out on some of the choices they can make. And I know in your curriculum, choice plays a bigger role as students progress, but it’s still always built on that structure.

Can you talk more about how the idea of choice is incorporated in your classroom? How do you balance giving students freedom and making space for their voice without them feeling lost or overwhelmed?

When I first got introduced to Choice Art Room, I saw the different models that were offered, and some of them were modified, some were completely choice, and for some of our teachers, that works. I tried it. Absolute fail. I was like, okay, I still want personal voice, and I think that’s so important. I’m not the type of art teacher—and again, if other art teachers are listening and they do it this way, I’m not putting it down—but I like to see each and every art student come through in their artwork.

So to me, “let’s do an inspired Starry Night” doesn’t really give them an opportunity to shine and have that chance to do what they want. So at the beginning, everything is really structured in my Art 1 class, and that’s usually a mix of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, depending on whether they have to get their fine art credit that year or not. But it’s mostly sixth grade, and they’re coming from elementary school, where it’s touch and go whether they have a good art teacher or not.

Tim:

They may or may not have had art.

Nadia:

They may or may not have had art at all, or had 35 minutes or 45 minutes of art per week, and then sometimes it cancels. It doesn’t work out most of the time. So when I bring these kids into Art 1, it’s very structured. However, the way that I balance that out, and I mentioned it before when we do the sketchbook, is that it’s a really big deal in my class, because that’s where that repetition happens, that’s where that practice and those drills happen.

They alternate their sketchbook homework. They have a week to do their homework because I really want them to spend time on it. They start with an observation, and then the following week they do something imaginative, like create your own cereal box or create your own superhero. So we kind of keep it balanced that way.

Once we’re in class, if we go into a still life, for example, which is a perfect example of something that’s in an atelier model, I will have them choose what area of that still life they want to focus on. I teach them how to make their own viewfinders so they’re not using their phones. I have them use the viewfinder, cut one out, and think about composition. What do you want to include so that you don’t get overwhelmed? What ends up happening is I get 30 still lifes that are different.

So it could be something that simple. Then once they get more into the school year, for example now, they’re doing their Zentangle, but we’re incorporating a collage, so they have to cut out an object or a person, put it down, and then they’re drawing around it. They get to pick what they want to cut out, where they place it, and which Zentangles they want to add, so they always start to get these little bits of choice going.

By the time the school year ends, you have a portfolio of, if we’re lucky, about six or seven pieces that show—

Sorry, I had to. It’s middle school. I was gonna say—

Tim:

You’re a middle school teacher, so if that didn’t give it away . . .

Nadia:

I had to. But they’ll have enough in their portfolio that gives them a wide range of these great individual pieces of artwork. Then once they decide to go into the advanced levels, into R2 or R3, that becomes the real Atelier model where I teach them a demo, they watch me, they do it alongside me, and I go around and help them, but they really do get to pick what they want to do or how they want to do it. I always usually let them pick their media, for example. My R2s will say, okay, you have these three choices. My R3s, you have these five choices.

Because you want to give them something to look forward to. If I can tell that next year gets to do the same thing, then it becomes, oh, next year I get to do that. It gets them motivated. So that’s really how the choice happens. It’s gradual, but I always try to get it in there, especially at the very beginning, so they are motivated to keep going and trying new things.

Tim:

Okay, very cool. I like that a lot. I think that’s a great way to go through things. And like you said, it’s different for everybody, the amount of choice they want to provide and how they do it, but I appreciate hearing what works for you.

And then just one last question for you. If there’s a new art teacher listening to this, or somebody who’s looking to revamp things and wants to start with a spiraled curriculum or something different, what is maybe a small, realistic first step they could take toward building that type of curriculum without feeling like they have to overhaul everything all at once? How do we start, and after we take those starting steps, how do we build from there?

Nadia:

I think start from the basics. I always say sketchbook, sketchbook, sketchbook. That’s the most important thing, because I train my students early on that the sketchbook is your brain on the paper. It’s your whole process. Too often, the kids that start off in Art 1 are so used to just putting a big X on something they don’t like, or tearing the piece of paper out of the sketchbook. Giving importance to your thoughts, even if they’re bad, even if they’re good—everything has a process. This is how you get to the end.

But for a new teacher, I would say keep it very simple.

Create a sketchbook.

Have them do a weekly sketchbook homework. Have them always do thumbnails and sketches and mini versions of whatever they’re going to create so that they learn to prize the materials and not think they just have another piece of paper. You want to get them to a place where they’re appreciating the process itself. Also, for a new teacher, I would say you don’t have to overcomplicate it. It really isn’t that complicated. Honestly, it was a way for me to organize my thoughts, because like I said, when I first started, it was chaos. What do I do?

Tim:

I know the feeling. A lot of people know that feeling.

Nadia:

That’s even worse for a new teacher, just to come into a place and be told, okay, here, do whatever.

I don’t know about you, but my state has standards, but doesn’t have a set curriculum.

Yeah. So you go in there, and it’s like, here, you’re going to teach photography? I’m like, okay, is there something? No? Good luck! So coming in with something on a piece of paper, it really is almost like a yearly unit. You can just make a square on a piece of paper and say, what do I want to teach? Do I want to divide this into my seven elements? Okay, let’s do line, let’s do space, and so on. What can I do for each one of these? And you start building.

That doesn’t mean you have to stick to it. Something might happen, and we know that in teaching a fire drill can derail everything.

Tim:

Absolutely.

Nadia:

Right? But I really think it’s just not very complicated. What’s the natural progression? Pencil, okay. We’re in dry media, move to colored pencil. Okay, now we’re covering colored pencil and color theory. Then just build from that.

Tim:

Yeah, I love it. You make it sound so easy.

But I think that’s good. I think that’s excellent advice.

Alright, Nadia, thank you for joining me, for sharing all of these ideas with us, and just talking through how you build your program and your curriculum. I think there’s a lot to offer there, and I appreciate you coming on.

Nadia:

Thank you! This was so much fun.