How to teach a class about William Morris?

Well, this is my first post ever written in English, so hopefully I will not make - a lot of mistakes-. The reason I wanted to write this in English is for two reasons, the main one cause I was trying to challenge myself and the other was because of what I recently have read and listened about Morris has been in English.

The first time I heard about him, was probably when I was an architectural student and they briefly taught us about the Arts & Crafts movement, but not even as a <style> and they never introduced us about the importance of decorative arts, they just told us about Morris ideology of trying to give value to products made by artisans, because it was the opposite of what the industrial revolutions meant, -this was not entirely wrong, but that is why we need this kind of posts-, so please architectural professors, give this hero design more value-.

At my class, I introduced Arts & Crafts, by first mentioning who was William Morris, born in 1834, he was an artist, a writer, a poet, a campaigner - I just recently discovered, that he studied architecture for a while- but specially a designer, understanding values such as function and beauty in all design objects. I cant remember specifically which book said that Morris understood that architecture and decorative arts, were very most alike, because they shared the function and aesthetic values.

So the first part is teaching Morris biography, then I taught my students a list of probably twenty types of decorative arts, -which many of them they didn't know existed, this came as a big surprise-, such as: ceramics, porcelain, feathers, fans, leather, wallpapers, silverware, plaster-work, stucco, toys, jewelry, ironwork, cabinetmaking, ivory, mosaic, pietra dura, tiles, basketry, enamels, goldsmith, clocks, textiles, carpets, tapestries, glass and crystal.

By building and refurnishing -The red house- Morris understood about the economy behind such design objects, becoming really interested in the medieval crafts, or the old way of building such things, which give us a sense of purpose and the opportunity to improve our self's and our craft. So, with this on his mind, by 1861 Morris started a decorating office, called Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. where they designed and produced wallpapers, stained glass, textiles and furniture.

So, now when you start seeing that your students are full with boredom and beginning to yawn, I recommend to show some of William Morris wallpapers and then start talking about all the design principles in them, the symmetry in the <The strawberry thief> or in <Pimpernel> or the different kind of structure such as a diamond net pattern, diagonals and grids.

Then for the final and practical part of the class, my students copied their favorite Morris Pattern and mixed them up a little with some of their fresh ideas. - I think they liked it, hopefully, at least the Morris idea, about enjoying our work, was there-.

<<Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful >> William Morris