Collecting Our Pasts: Making Museums in Our Lives
An Art/History Curriculum for the Second and Third Grades
By Tish Rygalski and Michael Wantorek
Fort Pitt Elementary
Children in the primary grades have limited experiences of the world. They "know", for certain, things that they see and do in their own homes, their neighborhoods, and their schools. Yet, we teachers often require them to learn about events and concepts for which they have no frame of reference. We speak to them of the past when they do not yet understand time in all its aspects. How can we help young children to understand an abstract idea such as history? Dorothy H. Cohen in The Learning Child suggests, "A first step in any learning … is exposure to basic information through the senses. After that, there must also be an opportunity for children to organize their new knowledge for themselves in ways that make sense to them. This they do by dramatization, discussion, and the use of art and construction materials…"
For learning to take place, new ideas must build upon students’ previous knowledge. By second and third grade, children have had repeated opportunities to listen to stories, to read stories, and to create stories of their own through spoken language, drawing, painting, and writing. They know that stories can relate real experiences or that they can be completely imaginary. They also know that an author of a story controls the information that the listener or reader receives. Because of the richness of the students’ personal experiences with them, stories can be used as the foundation for the study of history. In other words, students can see history as a collection of stories about people in a particular place, at a particular time. In our curriculum we will help the students to learn to "read" paintings and to discern the stories that they tell. These stories will give the students some insight into what life in the past was like. They will also help the students uncover the messages artists tried to convey to the viewers of their works. The students will also create artwork that will tell the stories of their own lives and that of their community. As we collect these images and stories of the past, students will come to see the role of the museum as a purveyor of history, a place where the past comes to life.
We have chosen three types of painting for the children to study – portraits, cityscape, and genre. Portraiture is the art of representing a specific person, group of people or an animal. The work represents the physical or psychological likeness of the subject, as well as detailing artifacts such as possessions, clothing or hairstyle that give information about the time in which the subject lived. Landscape art, in its broadest sense, depicts the general characteristics of an area. Cityscape, which we will focus on in our study, emphasizes the depiction of man –made structures rather than natural terrain. Cityscape, in other words, represents urban landscape. Genre is a type of painting that deals with unidealized scenes of everyday life. It depicts common people involved in ordinary activities.
For the study to be appropriate developmentally, the students need to begin concretely, working with self. According to Kellogg and Odell, children at this age begin to tell their own stories through their artwork. Therefore, in second grade the study will begin with self-portraits. By looking at self-portraits the students will begin to do two things: to find a story about the history of America, and to begin to tell a story of their own history. When we revisit portraiture in third grade we will move away from self to broaden the scope of the stories they tell about their lives, and to "read" more stories about the past.
In the same vein, progressing from the self, outwards, we will use cityscapes to tell stories of urban life. Because our students live in an inner-city community, in second grade we will focus on city neighborhoods; reading the stories the images tell, and discovering what they have to say about those places and times. In third grade we will broaden our focus to include the city as a whole. Specifically, we will study images of Pittsburgh to discover stories of its past and present.
We felt that since genre painting combines elements of both portraiture and cityscape, it would be appropriate as a theme for our final investigation. In second grade we will emphasize artworks that depict events important to an individual’s life. In third grade we will broaden the scope to view works that depict citizens making contributions to American society. The stories that these paintings tell will help students see the ways that life in the past was different from, yet similar to, life today.
The paintings in this curriculum were chosen for several reasons. First, all are by American artists and will present aspects of American history to the students. Second, many are by African-American artists and depict experiences of African-American life. Since the majority of our students are African-American we expect the works will have relevance and appeal to them. Third, we have access to large prints of these works, and can keep them permanently displayed and/or move them from the homeroom to the art room. In addition, most of them can be viewed by the entire class in the computer lab either on the World Wide Web or on an encyclopedia program like Encarta.
The curriculum is interdisciplinary in approach and combines activities in writing, reading, art production, and art history. It will be taught as mini-units of 2 – 3 weeks beginning in the second semester of second grade and continuing all through third grade. Classes will meet one period per week in the art room and 2 – 5 periods per week in the homeroom. In the following lesson plans we include activities based on one or two specific paintings or artists, but we will suggest several other works for which the activities can be extended, and which will support the concept of portrait, cityscape, and genre painting.
Because artwork is not usually viewed in isolation, but is generally collected in galleries and museums, we want students to have the experience of collecting and displaying work that conveys a sense of history. We will create a gallery setting, and students will culminate this unit of study by exhibiting works they produced to tell the "histories" of their own lives. In addition, we will display the portraits, cityscapes, and genre paintings we studied along with the writing and other projects we produced to explain what we found out about America’s and our own pasts.
Second Grade Curriculum
In the second grade we will begin our study by creating sketchbooks. The sketchbooks will be used to document the students studies over the next two years. The sketchbook will have an oaktag cover and then will be filled with drawing paper and lined paper. The sketchbook can be used for practice drawing and rough drafts, and can even be taken on field trips. These sketchbooks will travel between the student’s homeroom and the art room throughout the study, over the next two years.
Sketchbooks:
Supplies:
8 ½ by 11 inch oaktag
8 ½ by 11 inch drawing paper
8 ½ by 11 inch writing paper
Longreach stapler ( book binding stapler)
Directions:
Fold the oaktag in half to make the cover. Fold eight pieces of drawing paper and eight pieces of writing paper in half to create the pages for their sketchbook. Place the drawing and writing paper inside the oaktag and staple with the binding stapler.
Next, have the students design the covers of their sketchbooks with text and illustrations. Brainstorm titles ideas and creates a list of ideas with students.
For example, My Fabulous Sketchbook, My Great Sketchbook etc., and don’t forget to include the student’s name and homeroom number.
Self-portraits (Meets Pittsburgh Content Standards: Communications 4, 6, 7, Art 1, 2, 4, Citizenship 7. See Appendix 1.)
First Week- Art Room
Supplies:
drawing pencils
sketchbooks
Introduce the concept of a self-portrait. Talk about creating an image of one’s self. Questions to ask or to motivate:
Who are you right now?
Do you have long hair or short hair?
What color eyes do you have? Etc.
4. Are you going to be happy or sad in your picture?
5. Are you going to be angry or mean, etc?
Next, using pencil, students create a simple self-portrait in their personal sketchbooks. Students will take their sketchbooks ( with completed self-portrait) with them back to their homeroom.
First week- homeroom
Supplies:
writing pencils
sketchbooks
After, the students have had their first experience with self-portraits; the homeroom teacher will explore the subject further through writing. Students will be asked a series of questions regarding their first self-portraits. As the students are writing (in their sketchbooks), students will think of ways to improve or add to their self-portraits.
Describe your self-portrait, what do you want people to know about yourself?
Does your self-portrait tell a story?
What can you add to your self-portrait to tell a better story?
Second week- Art Room
Supplies:
sketchbooks
pencils
Reproductions of…
William H. Johnson, Self- portrait. c.1923-1926.
Self-portrait with Pipe. 1937.
Reading the Painting: Self-portrait. c. 1923-1926. In this painting we see a realistic picture of a man looking directly at the viewer. We can tell he is of African American descent by his physical characteristics. He is wearing a red shirt with black stripes. His hair and left shoulder blend into a dark background. There is a highlight on the right side of his face. This painting could be considered a contemporary portrait.
Reading the Painting: Self-portrait with Pipe. 1937. In this painting we see a man smoking a pipe and holding a paintbrush. He is wearing a smoking jacket and blue shirt typical of this era. He is also sporting a goatee with a manicured haircut. The man is looking directly at the viewer. The figure is outlined in black and the smoking jacket and background are painted with broad brushstrokes. There is a balance between cool and warm colors. There are warm golds and yellows in the man’s skin tones and large red brushstrokes toward the left of the figure. The cool colors are located throughout the hair and background with and emphasis on the blues.
About the Artist: William Henry Johnson was born in Flourence, South Carolina in 1901. His artistic talent was recognized early by a teacher who encouraged him to study in New York. His early works (such as the self-portraits) were influenced by Expressionism.
Johnson left America to live in Europe to study Modernism for twelve years. Upon his return to America he began to paint in a primitive style. Like his younger contemporaries, Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearrden, he used this primitive style to explore and express African American experiences. His Paintings depict memories from life in the rural south, as well as the buzz of the city during the Harlem Renaissance (I Baptize Thee and Street Life in Harlem). William Henry Johnson died in 1970.
Students will look at the self-portraits of William H. Johnson and discuss what they see. After a small discussion students will be given a history about the artist and his work. Students will be asked a series of questions based on the Yenawine Questioning Strategies. At the end of class students will be asked to copy the name of the artist and the titles of his art into their sketchbooks.
Who do we see here?
What can we learn about William H. Johnson, looking at his clothes, his pose, expression, etc..
How old do think they are? How can you tell?
What can you guess about his personality? How can you tell?
What can we tell about the time in which William H. Johnson lived?
Second Week – Homeroom
Supplies:
sketchbooks
pencil
Reproductions of…
William H. Johnson, Self-portrait. c. 1923-1926
Self-portrait with Pipe.1937.
The homeroom teacher and students will look at the reproductions of William H. Johnson’s self-portrait and discuss the paintings. Using the Yenawine Questioning Strategies, the homeroom teacher will entice the students to "find a story " in the works of art. Using their knowledge of the artist and ideas discussed about the works of art, student will write a narrative about the paintings in their sketchbooks.
Third and Fourth Week – Art Room
Supplies:
sketchbooks
pencils
drawing paper
jumbo colored pencils
During the next two weeks students will create a new self-portrait of themselves, based on all the knowledge they have acquired over the past two weeks. The teacher will discuss the formal qualities of a portrait and model techniques used in creating a face. Each student will create an individual self-portrait with pencil and colored pencils. Students will need to think about the physical and emotional qualities they would like the viewer to know about him or herself. For Example, what types of clothing and jewelry do we wear today, what feelings are they expressing in their portraits etc.. When finished, these portraits will travel back to the homeroom for further development.
Third and Fourth Week – Homeroom
Supplies:
sketchbooks
pencils
finished self-portraits
After the self-portraits are complete, students will have the opportunity to write an autobiography to accompany their work. They will need to include a physical description of themselves at various ages and describe significant events from their lives. The finished self-portraits and autobiographies will be stored in a safe place, until next year, to be exhibited in the final show.
Cityscapes (Meets Pittsburgh Content Standards: Communications 2, 4, 6, Art 1,2,3, Citizenship 1, 7. See Appendix 1.)
First Week – Art Room
Supplies:
drawing pencils
sketchbooks
Our first experience with cityscapes will be a walking tour of the neighborhood in which our school is located. Students will be asked to take note of the different aspects that make up a neighborhood. Students will be asked to draw their findings in their sketchbooks.
First Week – Homeroom
Supplies:
1. Sketchbooks
pencils
During the first week of cityscapes the homeroom teacher will continue the walking tour of the neighborhood. This time students will be asked to describe in writing what they observe. With encouragement students will be asked to describe in detail the physical characteristics of what they see.
For example…
Do you see a tall or short building?
What colors are the buildings? Etc.
What shapes do you see in the buildings, squares, rectangles or triangles?
Another list of items will also need to be generated, that includes all the physical parts of a neighborhood. Students will be asked to list all the parts of a neighborhood in their sketchbooks.
For example.
transportation
greenery
types of buildings
Streets and sidewalks etc.
Second Week – Art Room
Supplies:
sketchbooks
pencils
Reproductions of….
William H. Johnson, Street Life, Harlem. c. 1939-1940
John Farrar, The Couple. 1947.
Beauford Delaney, Can Fire in the Park. 1946.
Reading the Painting: Street Life, Harlem. C. 1939-1940. In this painting we see a woman and a man looking at each other on a city street. The two people are dressed up and appear to be going out. They are wearing clothing typical of the 1940’s. We see tall buildings with many stories and plenty of windows around them. There is a storefront and a fire hydrant on the sidewalk. There is a crescent moon in the sky. The painting is treated with heavy outlines and filled with flat colors.
Students will be introduced again to the artist William H. Johnson; we will be looking at a reproduction of his painting, Street Life, Harlem. We will also look at the works of two other artists that also deal with the theme of neighborhoods. Using the Yeniwine Questioning Strategies, students will be asked to describe what they see and can they read the artwork as if it were a written story.
What’s going on in this picture?
What kind of things do you see?
Does anyone see anything else?
What clues do you see that supports that thought?
What does this say about these neighborhoods?
When do you think this artwork was painted?
What was the artist trying to tell us?
Second Week – Homeroom
Supplies:
Smoky Night by Eve Bunting
Reproductions of….
William H. Johnson, Street Life, Harlem. c. 1939-1940.
John Farrar, The Couple. 1947.
Beauford Delaney, Can fire in the Park. 1946.
In the student’s homeroom students will be asked to "find the story" in the various artworks presented. The homeroom teacher will have an open discussion about the artwork. The homeroom teacher will provide an oral reading of in Smoky Night to provide the students with another insight into neighborhoods.
Third and Fourth Week – Art Room
Supplies:
sketchbooks
pencils
tempera paint
various paintbrushes
large sheets of construction paper (any color would be fine)
For the next two weeks students will be working on creating a picture of their neighborhood street. First students will develop their ideas in their sketchbooks. Students will be asked to consider their homes, objects and details surrounding their homes, and any other details that will enhance their pictures. Students will develop their pencil drawings into paintings.
Week Three and Four – Homeroom
Supplies:
1. Sketchbooks
2. Pencils
3. Finished neighborhood street paintings
In the teachers homeroom students will be asked to create captions for their paintings.
The students will be asked two questions regarding their artwork.
Where?
The name of their city.
The name of neighborhood.
The name of their street.
When ?
The time of year and the time of day.
These questions will be answered in their sketchbooks. The students will also consider a title for their artwork. Afterwards the students will type the title and their answers into the computer and print them out. The finished paintings and captions will be saved until next year for the final exhibition.
Genre: (Meets Pittsburgh Content Standards: Communications 4, 6, 7, Arts 1, 2, 3, 4, Citizenship 1, 7, 8. See Appendix 1.)
First Week – Art Room and Homeroom
Supplies:
sketchbooks
pencils
Reproductions of…
William H. Johnson, I Baptize Thee. 1940.
Romare Bearden, Farewell Eugene.
Fredrick Flemister, The Mourners. 1942.
Reading the Painting: I Baptize Thee, 1940. In this painting we see a ceremony taking place outdoors. There is a group of people in the distance witnessing the event. They are mostly wearing blue or their Sunday best, typical dresses and suits worn in the 1940’s. There are two men dressed in black who appear to be the ministers performing the ceremony. There are also two figures dressed in white gowns and hats, obviously getting baptized in a pool of water. The piece is painted in what might be considered a primitive style, with outlining of the figures, and the flatness of the colors.
In the student’s homeroom, the students will be introduced to the concept of genre paintings. The reproductions will be on display but not discussed until the following week. The reproductions will also travel between the homeroom and the art room. In the Homeroom, students will be asked to think of things people do in everyday life. The students will be asked to generate a list of everyday activities in their sketchbooks. Next, in the art room, students will be asked to draw one of their everyday activities in their sketchbooks.
Example activities:
driving a car
birthday parties
cooking dinner
Family reunions etc.
Week Two – Art Room
Supplies:
sketchbooks
pencils
Reproductions of…
William H. Johnson, I Baptize Thee. 1940.
Romare Bearden, Farewell Eugene.
Fredrick Flemister, The Mourners. 1942.
In the art room students will be asked to discuss the various artwork using the Yeniwine Questioning Strategies. Students will also be asked to copy the names of artist and the titles into their sketchbooks.
Who do we see here? What are they wearing, or expressing, etc.
What are they doing? Are they posing or are they unaware of the artist? Look for events or activities.
Are the people looking at us?
Where are they? Look at the setting or the environment.
Where do you think the artist is standing? Do you think the artist was close to or far away from the subject?
What time in history do these paintings take place? What evidence makes you think that?
Second Week - Homeroom
Supplies:
Li’l Sis and Uncle Henry, by Gwen Everett
The homeroom teacher will read aloud a biography of William H. Johnson’s life, titled, Li’l Sis and Uncle Henry. The book is filled with various works of the artist including I Baptize Thee. In an open discussion the students and the teacher will discuss the important and significant events of William H. Johnson’s life.
Third and fourth Week- Art Room
Supplies:
sketchbooks and pencils
tempera paint
various paint brushes
large sheets of painting paper (preferably white)
For the next two weeks students will have the opportunity to create a genre painting. Their imagery should come from some aspect of their own lives. Students will need to include people they know a familiar setting, and a personal event. Ideas and sketches will be done in their sketchbooks and then transferred into a painting.
Third and Fourth Week – Homeroom
Supplies:
sketchbooks and pencils
research about the Harlem Renaissance and the poet Langston Hughes
The homeroom teacher will introduce the students to the Harlem Renaissance and the writer Langston Hughes. Working in their sketchbooks, students will generate poems about their genre paintings. The poems will be typed into the computer and printed. The genre paintings and the poems will be saved until next year for the final exhibition.
Third Grade Curriculum
We will begin our second year of study by revisiting the questions: What does the word "past" mean? What is history? We will display the paintings that were studied last year and ask students to tell the stories that they remember about them. This information will be used to create the beginnings of a chart that will be added to as the year progresses. The chart will be split in half and contain two headings: What We Know About Art and What We Know About History. After we finish each four-week mini-unit we will add pertinent information to the chart.
Portraits (Meets Pittsburgh Content Standards: Communications 2, 4, 6, 7, Arts 1, 2, 3, 4, Citizenship 1, 7, 8. See Appendix 1.)
First week - Art Room
Supplies:
1. drawing pencils
2. sketchbooks (saved by teacher from previous year)
The study will begin with a discussion of why people create portraits. Students will be asked if their picture has ever been taken and why it was.
They will be asked how likenesses could have been captured before the invention of photography. They will be asked to think about why people in the past would have their portraits painted. The art teacher will focus on three conclusions that they will hopefully come to: portraits were painted as a remembrance/memento, portraits were done to honor someone of importance, portraits were created to document someone at a particular place and a particular time. The teacher will ask the students to decide which one of these reasons they would use to create someone’s portrait. They will then be asked to choose someone in the classroom or school that they would like to draw and to make a beginning sketch of them in their sketchbook.
First week - Homeroom
The teacher will ask the students to write a paragraph about the life of the person they sketched in their book. The students will discover that although they know some thing about the person, they really don’t know all about his or her life. We will brainstorm a list of ideas about how they could find out more about a person’s life. This activity will lead to generating a list of questions that they will use to interview the subject of their portrait in weeks three and four of the study.
Second Week - Art Room
Supplies:
Reproduction of George Caitlin’s, The White Cloud, Head Chief of the Iowas. 1845.
Reading the Painting: The White Cloud, Head Chief of the Iowas. 1845. This is a portrait of an important Native American named White Cloud. He appears confident, strong and brave. White Cloud wears an eagle quill headdress of war, and special paint on his face. The grizzly bear claws strung around his neck have a repeated curved design and in combination with the headdress create a strong framing device emphasizing his face. The skin of a white wolf hangs from his shoulders. The face is painted realistically with special care given to the details, while the clothing and background are painted with quick painterly strokes.
About the Artist: George Caitlin (1796-1872) was a self-taught artist who gave up practicing law to establish himself as a portraitist in Philadelphia. This did not satisfy him either and he searched for new avenues of expression. During this period of time he met a delegation of Native Americans and became interested in preserving a record of their quickly vanishing customs. He traveled for years painting portraits of Native Americans and making sketches of activities from their daily lives. Caitlin worked in the Classical and European tradition of heroic painting. He believed his art to be a memorial to Native people.
Using questioning techniques, such as Yenawine’s, the student will attempt to find the story in the painting. The teacher will pose questions for discussion such as:
1. Who is in this painting?
2. How old is he?
3. When do you think he lived?
4. Where do you think he lived?
5. Is there something special about him?
6. Can you tell anything about his personality?
7. What do you think the artist was trying to tell us about him?
Second Week - Homeroom
After a brief discussion of what they know about The White Cloud, students will be asked to do a piece of creative writing. They will write a short fiction story, assuming the role of the subject, White Cloud, or the artist, George Caitlin. In their first person narrative they will describe what their life is like and what being part of the portrait making process is like.
Third and Fourth Weeks - Art Room
Supplies:
1. White drawing paper
2. Drawing pencils
3. Watercolor paints
During the next two weeks students will create a portrait of their chosen subject. The teacher will discuss the formal qualities of a portrait and model techniques used in creating a face. The students will spend the first week creating an accurate pencil drawing and the second week using watercolors to finish the portrait.
Third and Fourth weeks - Homeroom
By now the students will have revised a list of questions to be used to find out about a person’s life. Some examples might be:
1. Where were you born, where have you lived?
2. What were some important events in your life so far?
3. What are you favorite clothes books colors, toys, etc.?
4. What is your family like?
5. What are your goals, what is important to you?
The students will use these questions to interview the subject of their portrait. They will use the information to write a short biography of their subject that will be displayed along with their portrait.
During these two weeks, the teacher will be reading examples of several age-appropriate biographies during regular story times to serve as models for the students’ work.
Cityscapes (Meets Pittsburgh Content Standards: Communications 2, 4, 6, 7, Arts 1, 2, 3, 4, Citizenship 1.)
First Week - Art Room and Homeroom
Supplies:
1. Sketchbooks
2. Drawing pencils
Because the focus of this part of the unit is the city of Pittsburgh (which is also one-half of the social studies curriculum for third grade) we will begin our study with a field trip to make observations about Pittsburgh. We will take our sketchbooks to Mount Washington to make bird’s eye view drawings of what we see. We will also label, then make a list of what we perceive to be important landmarks.
Back at school we will discuss what we saw. We will list natural landforms and man-made structures. We will compare and contrast objects, which are found in all cities to those which, are peculiar to Pittsburgh. We will also list places and objects that are defining or symbolic of Pittsburgh, including those, which we were not able to view from Mount Washington.
Second Week - Art Room
Supplies:
1. Reproductions of:
Romare Bearden, Pittsburgh Memories. 1984.
Peter Contis, Mount Washington Incline.
2. Magazines, Pittsburgh Post Gazettes
Reading the Painting: Pittsburgh Memories. 1984. In this work of art we see the natural topography of Pittsburgh and the three rivers. Using collage Bearden overlaps simple symbols of Pittsburgh’s history. At the Point we see Fort Pitt, soldiers, drums and coats of arms. We can also see different types of building structures from Pittsburgh’s past, from log cabins to factories. We can view different occupations, from spinning yarn to producing iron and steel. There is a range of types of transportation represented: horse and wagon canoe, war ship, steamboat, and sailboat. The piece is made in a long horizontal format.
About the Artist: Romare Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1914, and grew up in Harlem during the 1920's. He was inspired by the work of European artists who championed a collage aesthetic. Bearden's collages combine paints with images from magazines, newspapers and photographs. The collages often draw from his childhood memories of Charlotte, Pittsburgh, and Harlem. They depict African American people, their surroundings, and their daily rhythms of their lives.
The students will look at the reproductions first to find places/landmarks with which they are familiar. The teacher will then guide them to delve deeper into the art and to find the "stories" it tells, by asking them questions such as these:
1. How are these pictures the same, how are they different?
2. What part(s) of Pittsburgh do they represent?
3. When do they show us Pittsburgh?
4. Do they show us things the way they really look?
5. Why did the artists choose to show us Pittsburgh in these ways?
By looking at the Bearden, in particular, the students can see that many of stories of Pittsburgh have been combined into one work of art through the use of collage. The students will then look through newspapers and magazines to find pictures that will help
Them to tell a story about Pittsburgh.
Second Week - Homeroom
The students will review their list of landmarks that are definitive of Pittsburgh. The list should include some of the following: the point, the zoo, both inclines, Carnegie Library, the Gulf building, the Alcoa Building, PPG Place, the stadiums, the bridges, the universities, the schools. Each student will need to choose a landmark that interests her or him and conduct research through the school library or on line to find out more about the landmark. Students will then write short research reports about these landmarks.
Third and Fourth Weeks - Art Room
Supplies:
1. Heavy paper
2. Glue
3. Markers or colored pencils
4. Newspaper/magazine photographs
The teacher and students will continue the discussion of how a collage can tell many stories at once. The teacher will model how different kinds of art (drawing, photography, painting) can be combined in a collage. Each student will then create a collage that tells stories about a particular aspect of Pittsburgh, for example its bridges, or its biggest buildings, or its most famous people.
Fourth Week - Homeroom
Using their completed Pittsburgh collage as a model, each student will create a song or poem that will "advertise" the aspect of Pittsburgh that they depicted.
Genre (Meets Pittsburgh Content Standards: Communications 4, 7, Arts 1, 2, 3, 4, Citizenship 1, 8.) See Appendix 1.)
We will begin this part of the study by reintroducing genre as a type of painting that depicts a "slice of life". The teachers will reinforce that these captured moments can be of any day or age, not just our own, and that by "reading" the stories the stories they tell we can find out about life in the past. The students will come to see that there are similarities and differences in every person’s life.
First Week - Homeroom
The students will become "time detectives" in a game that will help them to look for clues that are signs of times past. The teacher will read or recite phrases that will have indicators of a time in history. The students will need to detect what those indicators are. For example, if the teacher says, "The woman tied on her bonnet, climbed on her horse, and rode to the trading post," the students should notice that bonnet, horse and trading post are artifacts from a time before there were cars and department stores. After going through several examples, the students will brainstorm and write a list of clues that help people identify a time in history (clothing, technology, types of jobs, etc.).
First week - Art Room
The students will continue the "time detectives" game, this time looking for visual clues to periods of time. They will look at student artwork that is displayed in the art room and name things that they see that can let the viewer know the time period in which the work was created (obvious things like Christmas trees, or more subtle things like hair or clothes styles). They will then create a chart of visual cues to look for to describe a time in history.
Second Week - Art Room
Supplies:
1. Sketchbooks/pencils
2.Reproductions of:
Winslow Homer, The Cotton Pickers. 1876
Jacob Lawrence, Builders #2, 1968.
Reading the Painting: The Cotton Pickers, 1976. In this painting we see two realistic women, centrally located in a field of cotton that appears to never end. They are both wearing dresses and aprons. They are both wearing bonnets typical of the period. Their faces are cast in shadow and they appear pensive. The figure on the left is carrying a basket full of cotton, and the woman carries and overflowing bag. The fluffy white cotton repeats the softness of the clouds.
About the Artist: Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was a naturalist painter who is considered one of the best 19th-century American artist. During the Civil War he made trips to the front to produce paintings and illustrations. After the war he visited France and began to paint countryside and wilderness scenes. In the mid 1870's he began to study African American's. He traveled several times to Virginia on painting excursions and made a series of paintings on the life of rural blacks. He viewed Southern African Americans with realism, sensitivity and restraint (The Cotton Pickers).
The students will discuss the two paintings using the Yenawine questioning method. Students will also be asked to copy the names of the artists and the titles into their sketchbooks.
1. Who do we see here?
2. What are they doing?
3. Where are they/what is the setting?
4. What clues can you find to describe the time of these paintings?
5. What kinds of work do the subjects in these paintings do? Is that kind of work
still done today?
Second Week - Homeroom
Supplies:
1.The Great Migration by Jacob Lawrence 2. Sketchbooks/pencils
The teacher will read The Great Migration to the students. As they listen, the students will write in their sketchbooks any written or visual clues that they noticed which tell about the time when the great migration took place. The students will then write a paragraph to summarize the book.
Third and Fourth Weeks - Art Room
Supplies:
White poster paper
2. Tempera paint/ brushes
3. Markers
4. Colored pencils
Each student will create a genre picture of a job that he or she might like to do. They will need to include visual cues to describe our era (current clothing, hairstyles, modern technology/tools, etc.). Students may choose to work in paint, marker, colored pencil, or any combination of the three.
Fourth Week - Homeroom
Supplies:
1. Completed genre pictures
2. Labels
3. Newspapers/ magazines
The teacher will discuss with the students the role a caption plays in helping to understand a visual image. In essence, a caption is a summary of the story that a picture tells. The students will look through magazines and newspapers to find captions that describe photographs. Each student will then write a caption to summarize his or her own genre painting.
Culminating Activity/Exhibition
From their collected works students will choose one piece of writing and one artwork that best illustrate aspects of their personal histories. With guidance from the instructors the students will set up a gallery in four sections:
1.Prints of original art from the masters
2.Self-portraits and portraits
3.Cityscapes
4.Genre pictures
The students will create labels for the art, and, if time permits, create a brief exhibition catalogue. They will write invitations to parents and faculty, and host an opening reception at the school.
Appendix 1
Pittsburgh Content Standards met in this curriculum:
Communications
2. All students read and use a variety of methods to make sense of various kinds of complex texts.
4. All students write for a variety of purposes, including narrating, inform and persuade, in all subject areas.
6. All students exchange information orally, including understanding and giving spoken instructions, asking and answering questions appropriately, and promoting effective group communications.
7. All students listen to and understand complex oral messages and identify their purpose, structure and use.
Arts and Humanities
All students describe the meaning they find in various works from the visual and performing arts and literature on the basis of aesthetic understanding of the art form.
All students evaluate and respond critically to works from the visual and performing arts and literature of various individuals and cultures, showing that they understand important features of the works.
All students relate various works from the visual and performing arts and literature to the historical and cultural context within which they were created.
All students produce, perform or exhibit their work in the visual arts, music, dance, or theater, and describe the meanings their work has for them.
Citizenship
All students demonstrate an understanding of major events, cultures, groups and individuals in the historical development of Pennsylvania, the United States and other nations, and describe the patterns of historical development.
7. All students demonstrate their skills of communicating negotiating, and cooperating with others.
8. All students demonstrate that they can work effectively with others.
Bibliography
Art Resources
Bunting, Eve: Smoky City, Harcourt Brace & Company, San Diego, CA, 1994.
Craven, Wayne: American Art, History and Culture, Boston, Massachusetts, McGraw Hill, 1994.
Driskell, David et. al. Lewis, Davis and Ryan, Willis: Harlem Renaissance, Art of Black America, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Abradale Press, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1987.
Everett, Gwen: Li’L Sis and Uncle Willie, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., Rizzoli, New York, 1993.
Hughes, Robert: American Visions, The Epic History of Art in America, Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
Janson, H.W.: History of Art, Volume Two, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1987.
New Hall, Beaumont: " The History of Photography," The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1964.
Developmental Resources
Cohen, Doroth H.: The Learning Child, Schocken Books, New York, 1972
Kellogg, Rhoda and O’Dell, Scott: The Psychology of Children’s Art, CRM-Random House Publications, 1967.
Lowenfeld, Viktor and Brittain, W. Lambert: Creative and Mental Growth, MacMillan Publishing Company, New York, 1987.
Internet resources for art resources:
http://www.fatheryan.org/harlemrenaissance/visual.htm
www.infirm.umd.edu/EdRes/colleges/ARHU/Depts/ArtGal
www.ols.net/users/rh/index.htm