Evolution of a caveman

A friend of mine, Barry Rodges, is an artist. He’s extremely talented, but the other day he posted some pictures on his Facebook page of his process. It showed rough sketches of characters, a caveman and his son, that were clearly works in progress. There were notes he had written to himself on the page. Suggestions for how to improve the characters. Critical evaluations of his own work. It struck me that this would fit nicely into my classroom. I want to hammer home the idea of a growth mindset vs a fixed mindset. Even extremely talented people have to work at their craft. Things don’t just magically come out of us fully formed. We have to revise, critique, edit, evaluate. It takes hard work and grit to learn new concepts and produce quality work of any kind. I want to use Barry’s work in my classroom. My initial thought is to have a series of short presentations to show that reinforce this concept. I want to find a way to use Barry’s work effectively, but also find other examples that I could use in class.

​I emailed Barry to tell him my idea and ask if he’d be willing to share some images of characters at different stages of development with me. Below are some of the pictures that he sent. (And here is a link to Barry’s website: http://www.barryrodges.com/)

Here are some totally non-rhetorical questions I'm seeking input on from other teachers:
Is there a better way to use these pictures than in a presentation with a discussion about growth mindset? What else would work to make this point? If this were one example in an ongoing series of examples, what other kinds of people/jobs/things could be there? If you have any answers to these questions, please leave a comment. Let's start a conversation.

​Nathan Garvin
6th Grade English