No-Prep Sub Plans for Bernd and Hilla Becher

Every art teacher knows the sinking feeling of writing sub plans at 6 a.m. with a fever. The good news is that Bernd and Hilla Becher's photography is almost tailor-made for a substitute who has never taught art in their life. The work is visual, the task is clear, and students can do meaningful looking and writing without a kiln, a paper cutter, or any specialized vocabulary the sub has to explain. This plan gives you a full period a guest teacher can run cold, with timings and student-facing instructions you can paste straight onto a slide.

Why the Bechers work for a sub day

The Bechers photographed industrial structures — water towers, gas tanks, blast furnaces — the same way every time: flat light, straight-on angle, centered, black and white. Then they hung the photos in grids they called "typologies." A student staring at nine water towers immediately gets the idea that comparison is the point, and that discovery does not require a teacher to lecture. If you want the full slide deck, printable grids, and background reading, the Bernd and Hilla Becher – Typologies of Photography resource is built to be handed to a colleague as-is.

The 50-minute plan, minute by minute

Leave this sequence in the sub folder. Every step is timed so a non-specialist knows exactly when to move on.

1. (0–5 min) Settle and read the objective aloud: "Today you will analyze how repetition and comparison create meaning in photography, and make your own typology."
2. (5–15 min) Silent looking: Project the grid of towers. Students write for eight minutes answering three prompts on the handout: What is the same in every photo? What is different? Why might an artist remove color and shadow?
3. (15–25 min) Turn and talk: Pairs compare answers and agree on the one difference they find most interesting.
4. (25–45 min) Make a typology: Using phone cameras or classroom objects arranged on desks, students shoot or sketch four to six images of one category — doorknobs, sneakers, backpacks — keeping angle and framing identical.
5. (45–50 min) Exit ticket: "What did seeing your objects in a grid make you notice that a single photo would not?"

Student-facing instructions you can paste

Subs do best when they read directly from the screen. Put this block on a slide: "Look before you write. In a Becher grid, nothing is posed and nothing is dramatic — the drama comes from putting similar things side by side. Your job today is to make an ordinary object look worth studying by photographing several of them exactly the same way." That single paragraph carries the whole lesson, and it keeps the guest teacher from having to improvise.

Low-prep extensions if time runs long

Fast finishers are the real risk on a sub day, so bank a few extensions. Students can write a wall label for their grid, sort the class's photos into new categories, or compare the Bechers' cool detachment with an artist who uses repetition emotionally, such as the mirror rooms and dot fields in Yayoi Kusama – Installation and Repetition. For a sharper contrast, ask them how a stenciled image repeated across a city in Banksy – Street Art and Social Critique uses sameness for a completely different purpose than the Bechers do. Both make strong five-minute debate prompts.

What to collect and leave for you

Ask the sub to collect the handouts and exit tickets in one folder, and to jot the names of anyone who was off task. When you return you will have a stack of authentic student thinking to launch the next lesson — no lost day, no re-teaching. That is the whole promise of a good sub plan: the room keeps working even when the specialist is out.

Related reading from the Teacher Hub

• Bell Ringers and Warm-Ups for Bernd and Hilla Becher
• Assessment Ideas for Hannah Höch: Rubrics, Quizzes and Exit Tickets
• Project-Based Learning: Yayoi Kusama in the Real World