Altered Art Books- 8th grader's year-long project

Altering books has been an art form since the Victorian period, but not until recently did it have such popularity. Regular old, worn, used or damaged books may be altered into a work of art by changing their original use (to read) and perhaps even their form through various artistic techniques.

At the beginning of the school year, each 8th grader was given an old book to alter during the course of the year. They were able to work on them on certain days set aside just for the books as well as when they got finished early with a project. Some students even chose to take them home from time to time.

Although there was a lot of freedom with this project, I did set up a timeline so that there was a specific set of goals I needed the students to meet for each quarter.

1st quarter- The students added five tabs that broke their book up into sections. The sections are: Family, Friends, School, Sports and Free Space. They had the option of trading out one of the tabs for a second Free Space if they wanted. Some turned their Free Space into a 'Me Space' or a 'Goals' section. One student used his Free Space to show 'Art Styles'.
Each student's tabs could be different. Some students used pieces of colored paper glued to the edge of the page and staggered throughout the book as you might find in an old encyclopedia. Others tried something different by braiding yarn and gluing the loops between two pages.

2nd quarter- This quarter we focused on decorating the first page of each section (Family, Friends, School, Sports, Free Space). You will see some examples of these below.

3rd quarter- Third quarter was when we got the pages in our books filled. Each section was to have at least four pages. Pages were decorated with collage, paint, glitter,  stitching, pockets, pop-outs and basically anything that they could creatively think up!

4th quarter- Last but not least, students added a cover to their book that was to represent themselves.

Below are images of the students' books and some of the pages that are within. Enjoy!