Researching a Practitioner Without Copying the Page
LAUNCH · Art · Lesson 3 of 6. Trinity Arts Award Silver, Unit 1. Researching a Practitioner Without Copying the Page.LAUNCH · Art · Week 3. Trinity Arts Award Silver, Unit 1. Researching a Practitioner Without Copying the Page.
Objective: research one practitioner from the approved pack, record three findings in your own words with the source named, and state one thing their practice changes about your own plan.
Success evidence: three findings, each in your own words with its source named, and one line saying what changes in your own work as a result.
Practitioners come from the approved research pack (a screen copy of four cards is on the I Do slide). You research the practice, not the person's private life.
40 minutes. Offline.
Arrival · retrieve
Research is what you did with it, not what you found
Unit 1 does not assess how much you found. It assesses what you did with it.
Copied text scores nothing, however accurate. It shows the source could write, not that you could read.
A finding in your own words shows you understood it well enough to say it differently.
Every finding also carries its source, because a finding nobody can trace is a rumour.
And one line at the end says what changes in your own plan. That line is the assessed part.
You need the practitioner pack, your Unit 1 planner from week one, and the findings sheet.
Two paragraphs is enough. A pack with more in it would reward reading speed rather than reading.
Everything you need for a Silver Unit 1 finding is on the card in front of you.
Starter · create the need
Two findings, one afternoon
Finding A reads: she is known for her large-scale textile installations that reimagine domestic space.
Finding B reads: she works big, in fabric, and hangs it in rooms so you walk through it instead of looking at it.
The first is the catalogue's sentence. The second is somebody who read it.
An assessor can tell them apart in a second, and so can you.
The test is whether the sentence sounds like the rest of your writing.
If it does not, you have copied it, whether or not you meant to.
- 1 · read it, then look away.
- 2 · say it out loud in your words.
- 3 · write what you said.
- 4 · name where it came from.
Read both again and notice the length. The copied one is one long sentence.
People do not speak in sentences that long, which is why the tell works.
🔎 Spot the copy · press a finding, then press a pile
Eight findings. Three piles: OWN WORDS, COPIED, BORDERLINE. Two are borderline and you should be ready to argue for them.
I Do · model
Reading, looking away, and writing
My practitioner card gives me two paragraphs and three images.
I read the first paragraph twice, then turn the card over.
Looking away is the whole method. You cannot copy what you cannot see.
Then I say it out loud: she builds things you walk into, out of cloth.
I write exactly that, and next to it I write card two, paragraph one.
The source is a card here. In a book it is a page, and online it is a site and a date.
🗂 Practitioner pack · screen copy
Four cards, two paragraphs each. Pick one, read a paragraph twice, then press Turn the card over. You cannot copy what you cannot see. Staff: these mirror the printed pack; add your own approved practitioners on paper.
Paragraph 1 · what and how. Makes very large sculptures: mirrored steel, deep single-colour pigment, curved forms and dark hollows you cannot see the bottom of. Many pieces are about scale — the viewer is meant to feel small — and about what an empty space does to you.
Paragraph 2 · a work to know, and why it matters. Teesside link: Temenos (2010) at Middlehaven, Middlesbrough, made with the engineer Cecil Balmond — steel rings joined by a net of cable, about 110 metres long, the first of the Tees Valley Giants. Won the Turner Prize in 1991.
A question to take into your own work: What does the empty space in the middle of the work do to the person looking at it?
Paragraph 1 · what and how. Casts the space inside and around everyday things — the gap under a chair, the inside of a cupboard, a whole room — in plaster, resin or concrete. The empty space becomes the solid object, and the object itself is gone.
Paragraph 2 · a work to know, and why it matters. House (1993) was a concrete cast of the inside of a terraced house in east London; it stood for a few months before it was demolished. She won the Turner Prize in 1993, the first woman to do so. Themes: memory, absence, the everyday.
A question to take into your own work: Which everyday space near you would be worth casting, and what would the cast show that the object hides?
Paragraph 1 · what and how. Built huge, rough sculptures from cheap materials — timber, plywood, cardboard, plaster, cement, fabric, tape — stacked and propped so they look as if they might fall. Hand-made, fast, and never precious.
Paragraph 2 · a work to know, and why it matters. Filled Tate Britain’s Duveen Galleries with dock (2014) and represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2017 with folly. Became widely famous only in her sixties, after decades of teaching. Themes: scale, balance, making with what is to hand.
A question to take into your own work: What is the cheapest material in this room, and how big could you build with it before it fell over?
Paragraph 1 · what and how. Paints and draws in pastel and paint: terraced streets, shipyards, big-shouldered working figures, children, sheep and hearts. The shapes are simple and rounded and the colours are warm, so hard subjects feel hopeful.
Paragraph 2 · a work to know, and why it matters. Grew up on Teesside and worked in the shipyards before art school in London; his pictures of northern working life now sell around the world. Themes: hard work, family, hope, belonging to a place.
A question to take into your own work: How does he make a grey industrial place look warm — is it the colour, the shapes, or the people?
All four cards describe the practice — what is made, how, and why — never private life. Facts are the widely published ones; check dates against a current source before quoting them in the portfolio.
Three findings, three sources. It takes longer than copying and it is the only version that counts.
I do not write while the card is face up. Not once, at any point.
We Do · everyone commits
Sort the findings: own words or not?
Six finding cards are on your table. Sort them into own words and copied.
Then match each copied one to the tell that gives it away: a word nobody would say aloud, a sentence too long to have been spoken, or a term left unexplained.
Two of them are borderline. Put those in a third pile and be ready to argue for it.
When your table has sorted all six, hold up the borderline one you feel strongest about.
Hold one up even if your table disagreed with you.
One card is a quotation with the marks left off. Say what makes that different from copying.
I Do 2 · connect
The line that makes it research
Three findings on their own are notes. Notes are not assessed.
What turns notes into research is the line that says what changes because of them.
Mine reads: she works big, so I am making one large piece instead of three small ones.
That line links back to a box on my planner, and the planner changes on the same page.
The change can be small. One box on the planner is enough.
It can also be a decision not to change anything, as long as you say why.
A change you make and do not record is invisible to an assessor and therefore did not happen.
We Do 2 · lab
Does it sound like you?
Work in twos. Read your partner one of your findings aloud.
They say whether it sounds like the way you talk.
If it does not, they name the word that gave it away.
Replace that word with one you would say, and read it again.
Then swap over and do the same for theirs.
Read it aloud rather than passing the sheet. The ear catches what the eye skims.
👂 Tell detector · type or scribe a finding, then press Check
It counts words per sentence and looks for catalogue words. It cannot judge meaning — your partner’s ear does that. Nothing you type is saved.
Independent · evidence
Three findings and one change
Work on your own. Read, turn the card over, then write.
Record three findings in your own words, each with its source named.
Then write one line saying what changes in your own plan because of them.
Go back to your planner and make that change on the page, dated.
If nothing changes, say so and give the reason; that is a decision, not a gap.
📝 Finding record · three findings, one change
Fill each line after the card is turned over. Press Read back to hear the whole record. Copy it onto the findings sheet; nothing is saved here.
- Supported · two findings in your own words with sources, and the change said aloud for an adult to write.
- Standard · three findings with sources, and one written change to the plan.
- Stretch · as Standard, and say which finding you are choosing NOT to act on, and why.
Number your findings so the sources and the findings stay paired when the sheet is filed.
If two findings say the same thing, drop one and find another; three of the same is one finding.
Exit · Audience and Influence
Read the change to an adult
Read the line about what changes in your plan to the adult at your table.
They read it back and say which finding they think it came from.
If they pick the wrong one, add the link in words and read it again.
Then choose what happens next: keep this practitioner, add a second, or stop researching and start making.
Write the choice on the sheet with today's date before you leave.
The findings sheet is clipped to the planner and both go in the Silver folder.