Building Empathy Through Mixed-Media Art

Though art teacher Mindy Sizemore’s students at Spring Mills High School in Martinsburg, West Virginia, had been taught about feelings before, she realized those lessons probably started—and likely ended—at the elementary level. But she knew that high school students need to deepen their understanding of emotions in order to succeed in their adult lives. So she developed an activity she calls “emotion collages” to boost her students’ emotional literacy skills: identifying and naming the range of emotions they experience, and understanding and navigating the feelings of others.

To kick off the activity, students receive a blank square of paper, along with glue, scissors, and stacks of old magazines. Each student randomly draws an emotion out of a bucket and keeps their pick hidden from their classmates. Sizemore includes a variety of emotions, including surprise, happiness, fear, and anxiety. Each student then looks through the magazines to find colors, images, shapes, and words they can use to symbolize that emotion.

The exercise asks students to think deeply about what an emotion looks and feels like without using the word itself. Many draw from personal experiences or use cultural references they think would resonate with their peers. While they work, Sizemore rotates around the room and challenges them to dig deeper and add more meaningful elements.

When the collages are complete, they are displayed on desks with corresponding numbers. Students rotate around the room with a blank worksheet, trying to match each collage with the intended emotion. Some emotions repeat, and not every line is filled. They work in pairs or small groups, dissecting each collage and discussing how to interpret the words, symbols, and colors. These conversations spur nuanced conversations about how emotions manifest. Crucially, students can see that emotions mean different things to different people. Anger, for example, might be loud and involve yelling or stomping. Or it could be a quiet, stewing kind of mad.

To wrap up, Sizemore reads the answers aloud and then asks for students’ reflections on the activity. In what ways was it challenging? How did the same emotion look different based on students’ varied interpretations? What does that mean about how we interact with and care for each other? One of Sizemore’s students, Grace, describes emotion collages well: “You may be making an art piece, but somebody out there may feel that actual feeling, and it can help you understand, ‘Oh, that’s what that looks like.’” For Sizemore, her students aren’t too old to learn about emotions—in fact, they’re at just the right age to consider them, deeply and creatively.

For more on why social and emotional learning is so critical during the teen years, read Sarah Gonser’s article for Edutopia, “High School Is Not the Time to Let Up on SEL.”