Students investigate a real community issue by asking how to reduce unwanted graffiti while preserving space for legal street art. Through a community walk, debate, museum analysis, artist feedback, research, and argumentative writing, they learn to distinguish vandalism from artistic expression and develop evidence-based solutions. The work leads to a team-created graffiti artwork and community wall proposal that students defend to a public panel of a graffiti artist and museum partner. Along the way, students strengthen discussion, research, analysis, collaboration, and reflection skills while examining what art means in their community.

Students will research graffiti as both a community problem and an art form, synthesize evidence from a community walk, museum sources, and a graffiti artist’s studio talk, and use that research to answer how communities can reduce vandalism while preserving legal street art. They will write and orally defend an argumentative proposal that includes clear claims, counterclaims, rebuttals, and discipline-specific evidence, while also analyzing how graffiti is represented across visual art, public spaces, and written arguments. Students will collaborate effectively by contributing to a shared mural design and proposal, participating in debates and team discussions, and using mid-project and final reflections to assess teamwork, individual contributions, and growth in how they understand art, community, and responsibility.

Students will create annotated photo notes from the community walk, debate evidence charts, museum/art analysis comparisons, and short research notes from the graffiti artist talk and museum visit. In teams, they will develop a graffiti-style artwork design, sketch revisions, and a legal community wall proposal that includes claims, counterclaims, rebuttals, and specific solutions for reducing vandalism while preserving space for street art. Each student will also write an argumentative paper and prepare an oral defense for Street Art Solutions Night. By the end, teams will present their final artwork mock-up and community proposal to a panel that includes the graffiti artist and museum representative.

Kick off with a Community Problem Hunt and Art or Vandalism? Debate Dash: students take a short community walk or study local photos of tagged spaces, murals, and damaged property, then sort examples at stations and defend whether each is art, vandalism, or both using quick evidence-based discussion. Bring in the student’s father, a graffiti artist, for a brief opening studio talk and live sketch demo that introduces graffiti as an art form, explains legal mural spaces, and frames the central challenge of reducing unwanted graffiti without erasing street art. End the launch with teams generating a first draft problem statement and one possible solution for a legal community wall, then share out ideas they will investigate through research, museum analysis, and argument writing.

Host a Street Art Solutions Night where teams present their argumentative papers and give a short oral defense to a panel that includes the graffiti artist, a museum curator or educator, families, and school/community leaders. Students then lead visitors through display stations featuring their graffiti-style artwork, community research, and legal wall proposals, explaining how each plan reduces vandalism while preserving space for street art. Include a gallery walk with feedback forms so panelists and guests can respond to the strength of each argument, the artistic choices, and the practicality of the solution. Close with brief team and self-reflection conferences in which students name one academic growth, one social-emotional growth, and evaluate their collaboration and contributions.