Teaching an advanced Ceramics class this year was something new for me.  I was excited by the prospect of giving the kids a lot of freedom and choice to hone the skills they learned in Ceramics I.  Earlier in the year, students created a sculptural response project–designing a 3-D sculpture that was inspired by a 2-D piece of art.  This spring they completed a similar assignment by designing a 3-D sculpture that was inspired by a piece of music, film or literature.  These rough guidelines gave the students a lot of room to explore, express themselves, and further develop the particular clay techniques that they felt would work best to reach their goal.