In creating lesson plans for this unit, it is my hope to introduce young people to the thrill of observing and understanding art. While there are many opportunities in our city to experience really great art, so few ever enter a museum. Few ever read poetry, unless it is required. The media television, MTV, the Internet has changed our lives. And, whereas these interests have contributed much, what they have taken away is even more profound our curiosity about those ideas and objects that have the power to enrich and nourish our spirit, things that last.
Art history is not my forte; I am a French teacher. My interest has focused on communicating with another culture through words and idiom. Yet, I hope that by engaging in some of these exercises both the students and I will come to learn, together, about the treasure of art, within our reach, and its relevance to the culture it represents.
LESSON PLAN 1: Reading the canvas: How to observe
Focus and Review: Students have studied the methodology of object analysis as proposed by Jules Prown in
Mind in Matter
, from the Winterthur Portfolio. In addition, they have researched and learned about the life of Thomas Eakins.
The Champion Single Scull
will be offered as evidence of this occurrence.
Objectives: (Learning Outcomes) At the end of this lesson,
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• Students will be able produce an object analysis of
The Champion Single Scull
beginning with description, proceeding to deduction, and finally providing speculation by interpreting the outward evidence of culture.
Guided Practice:
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• The teacher will lead students through the object analysis of Caillebotte's
The Floor Scrapers
.
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• Students will be encouraged to brainstorm about each step as the teacher directs it: what elements should be included where, and so forth.
Independent Practice:
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• Students will study a color transparency of
The Champion Single Scull
in class. Four overhead projectors will be set up to allow for small group observation and note taking.
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• Students will take copious notes in their analysis.
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• Students will use a clipboard and paper to sketch the painting in an effort to recognize line and shapes on the picture plane.
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• Students will type their analysis of the painting.
Evaluation/Closure:
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• Students will take turns offering their observations.
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• Fellow classmates will be encouraged to critique the observations, add to or contradict them.
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• Criteria for success will be:
-
____
• to observe the student's ability to follow the procedure from description through speculation.
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____
• to observe their correct observations and insight.
Materials Needed:
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• Clipboard and paper.
Interdisciplinary Links:
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• In addition to taking notes in class, students will research the background of Thomas Eakins in the books and research opportunities provided by the teacher.
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• Students may make use of information and suggestions for research provided by the art teacher and library media specialist.
LESSON PLAN 2: Documenting Change in Culture
Focus and Review: Students have made a study of paintings by Eakins and Caillebotte in which evidence of cultural change in society is rendered. Eakins'
The Champion Single Scull
and Caillebotte's
The Floor-Scrapers
will be offered as evidence of this occurrence.
Objectives: (Learning Outcomes) At the end of this lesson,
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• Students will be able to identify clashes/dichotomies/anachronisms in their physical environment. Discussion/brain-storming of what these might be: e.g. 'modern' metals (chrome, plastics, etc.), fabrics, modern techniques/shapes, etc.
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• Students will develop a "skill" in using a Polaroid camera.
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• Students will render a drawing of their photograph
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• Students will make a painting on canvas.
Guided Practice:
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• Students will be led to recognize examples of cultural change in their city, using criteria stated above.
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• Students will explore the city of New Haven, looking for evidence of cultural change in tandem.
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• Students will learn to analyze a scene for balance and space.
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• Students will decide whether to incorporate figures into their snapshot.
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• Using a Polaroid camera, students will photograph the scene.
Independent Practice:
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• Students will study their photograph for balance. (Sometimes, their photographs will not succeed in showing both cultural change and balance i.e. pleasing to the eye. They will be encouraged to analyze their shot and allowed to re-take (if they choose to) using a different angle, "correct" their drawing or find a new scene.)
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• A Xerox copy of the photograph will be made if wanted, enlarging - if wanted.
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• Students will be directed to validate their evidence by writing a description of the interaction of cultural changes in their shot.
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• Students will use pencils to produce a recreation of their snapshot.
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• Students will replicate their drawing to canvas.
Evaluation/Closure:
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• Students will display their photograph and accompanying completed drawing and painting.
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• Students will select one of their classmate's work and write a Cinquaine about it.
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• Criteria for success will be:
-
____
• to observe the student's understanding of cultural change in their environment by using at least two examples of evidence.
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____
• to render an accurate drawing and painting of their snapshot.
Materials Needed:
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• Polaroid camera
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• Drawing paper
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• Canvas board
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• Paints
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• Art teacher
Interdisciplinary Links:
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• Students could sketch evidence of cultural change in their home or place of work or worship, at play or in the gym, in social interactions, etc.
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• Students could search the web for other artists using evidence of cultural change.
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• Students could compare evidence of cultural change in the works of Eakins and Caillebotte with the work of another visual artist of their choosing.
LESSON PLAN 3: Imagining an encounter
Focus and Review: Students have studied the lives/backgrounds of Thomas Eakins, Gustave Caillebotte and Edgar Degas. With that in mind, they will write a scenario of a brief encounter between Eakins or Caillebotte and Degas.
Objectives: (Learning Outcomes) At the end of this lesson:
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• Students will demonstrate their knowledge of the works and techniques of the three artists observed.
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• Students will imagine how each would respond in a conversation by using elements of persuasion, criticism or praise.
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• Students will perform their 'brief encounter' with a partner from class.
Guided Practice:
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• Students will take notes in class on the lives of these artists.
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• Students will be led to discuss their scenario with their partner.
Independent Practice:
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• Students will rehearse their skit in class.
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• Students will be encouraged to use props, costumes, special lighting, furniture, etc.
Evaluation/Closure:
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• Students will perform their skit in front of the class.
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• Criteria for success will be use of convincing arguments and believability as judged by their fellow classmates.
Materials Needed:
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• Students
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• Props, if desired
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• 'Paintings' of the artists
Interdisciplinary Links:
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• Students could confer with members of the debate team, members of the faculty, family or friends for encouragement and criticism.
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• Students could read selected books or search the web for evidence of the artists' personal preferences or biases on art.
LESSON PLAN 4: "Wordpools" that Evoke the Senses
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Focus and Review: Students have been exploring the theme of 'figures in interior spaces' as portrayed by selected artists of the same time period but from different cultures. Through careful description, analysis and speculation, the students have learned that art can be an accurate documentation of an era, showing the changes in their cultural history in a similar, realistic style.
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Objectives: (Learning Outcomes) At the end of this lesson:
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• Students will draw on their descriptive skills learned and written in the appreciation phase of this study, comparing the works of Thomas Eakins, Gustave Caillebotte and Edgar Degas.
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• Students will select various parts of speech and create poems consisting of 'pools' of words, expressing imagery that awakens our sensory intelligences as they describe the scene.
Guided Practice: "The question is not what you look at, but what you see." Thoreau
The expressive form 'collage' makes art from bits of 'stuff' collected and linked together through theme in the mind of the artist. "The word poem comes from the Greek poein, to make. In a collage, as in poems, you reassemble fragments of found or collected images to make a new image of your own."
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• Students will each be given a page torn from a Yellow Pages Telephone Book. They will be asked to couple two words… perhaps the headings, or one at the top and one at the bottom of a column: Divorce-Dog, Elevator-Embossing, Marble-Marine, etc. These coupled words form 'wordpools' and each gives a different twist to the new meaning created by being 'collaged' together.
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• Students will be taken to a room where they don't normally go: the furnace room, the supply room, the kitchen in the cafeteria, the Principal's office, the security person's room, etc. This disorientation will cause heightened awareness of the objects, colors, smells, textures, temperature, line and form.
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• Students will be asked to be silent, to turn around slowly and, like a camera, to pan the interior.
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• With paper and pencil provided, students will begin to 'couple' two or three words together as their senses call for vocabulary from the scene. This will become a free-form poem.
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____
• The kitchen might suggest:
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____
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Gray, cold, steel
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____
____
Stalactite pots
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____
____
Hang, bang, clang,
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____
____
Mirroring tiles
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____
____
Antiseptic ants in hiding
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• Students will read their poems upon returning to the classroom.
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• Students will create two 'wordpool poems' describing a room in their own home for homework.
Independent Practice:
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• Students will select four (4) works of art from the study "Documentation of an Era."
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• Students will draw on vocabulary from that source, and create lists of words that reveal the senses: sound, touch, smell, taste, sight.
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• Students will write poems, coupling these words along with selected verb forms and adjectives, in response to the selected paintings.
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• Each of these poems may be presented in a different manner. Some possibilities might include:
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• Cutting and pasting letters from random words in magazines, creating a 'random' appearance.
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• Drawing the words with colored pencils to assign the emotion of color to the meaning of the word. e.g. green = cool, wet, moist, soft, fresh.
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• Writing the words in graffiti style over a torn paper collage, as in the peeling billboard surfaces that reveal past and present advertisements.
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• Manipulating the computer font in a creative way to express the poem.
Evaluation/Closure:
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• Students will self-evaluate the collection of their own four poems for quality and quantity of sensory images intrinsic in the wordpools.
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• Students will critique each other's poetry.
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• A book will be compiled and published for the school library and made available during the birth months of Thomas Eakins, Gustave Caillebotte and Edgar Degas. Each day of that month, a "Wordpool Poem" will be read over the school intercom during morning announcements.
Materials Needed:
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• Books, magazines, announcements, dictionaries
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• Imagination
Interdisciplinary Links:
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• Students might keep a journal handy to jot down words and phrases seen on their walk/ride home or overheard in the corridors/bathrooms/play rehearsals, etc.
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• Students might study the effect of logos and jingles, seen and heard.
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• Students pay closer attention to what is seen and heard on television, video games, during sports practices, at a family gathering, while listening to music, etc.
LESSON PLAN 5: The Figure at Work and in Sport
Focus and Review: Students have made a study of paintings by Eakins, Caillebotte and Degas in which figures are rendered in the act of labor or sport and competition.
Objectives: (Learning Outcomes) At the end of this lesson,
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• Students will understand the use of the human form as it defines the positive (objects and figures) and negative (background) elements in the composition of a painting.
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• Students will develop a skill in blending and layering pastels in a xerograph technique (Xeroxing a picture or photograph and coloring it with pastel crayons) using the human form as subject matter.
Guided Practice:
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• Students will describe and analyze the positions of the bodies in the following paintings while viewing them in slides
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____
•
John Biglin in a Single Scull
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____
•
The Floor Scrapers
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____
•
The Ballet Rehearsal
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• Using a black and white Xerox of one of the slides, students will be asked to color in the figure as a flat shape. This is labeled as a 'positive shape.'
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____
• Sometimes the figure is touching or connected to another object, as with John Biglin and his oar. This whole figure and scull can be labeled the positive shape.
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• Using another color, students will fill in the shapes around the figure. This is labeled the 'negative space' or 'shape.'
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• Students will be asked to look around the room and cite furniture and wall decorations as positive and negative elements in the room.
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• Students will be led to understand the importance of the diagonal line or direction within the painting as the critical element that indicates 'action.' They will learn by observing that diagonals are never static and always indicate movement or action.
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• Students will make a grid of color variations by layering three colors and writing the stages from first layer to third: e.g. red> yellow> orange, blue> red> purple, etc.
Independent Practice:
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• Students will search magazine photographs for pictures of figures in actions depicting labor or sport.
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• Students (or teacher) will make a Xerox copy of the picture, enlarging if necessary.
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• Students will be directed to write a description of the interaction of positive and negative space in the picture they selected. They will identify the lines of strength or stress the figure shows that most accurately defines the pose: e.g. the stretch of the arms in the
Floor-Scrapers
is that element of physical stress that defines the position of the figure.
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• Students will use oil pastels to 'paint' the Xerox, creating a new artistic statement. Elements of detail may be eliminated in the positive or negative spatial areas. Choice of color and intensity will help the viewer interpret the action and strength of the activity.
Evaluation/Closure:
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• Students will display their completed xerographic pastel paintings.
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• A continuum may be created showing paintings that go from:
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____
• those least strenuous to those most strenuous
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____
• those stretching the figure to the edges of the picture plane to those enclosed.
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____
• those expressing muscles that are contracting and those extending.
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• Students will select one painting and write a Cinquaine* about it.
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• Criteria for success will show the student's understanding of positive and negative space, use of diagonals in composition that suggests action, and layering pastels to create color combinations that give added value and tension to the work.
Materials Needed:
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• Slides of selected paintings
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• Xeroxes of one or two of the slides shown
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• Oil pastels
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• 8 ½ x 11 white paper for grid of color combinations
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• Magazines such as
Sports Illustrated
and
Home Builders
. Magazines providing photos of female as well as male athletes/laborers would be stressed.
Interdisciplinary Links:
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• Students could search the web for other artists using labor and sport as theme.
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• Students could show similarities and differences in the work of Eakins, Caillebotte and Degas with the work of African American artists such as Jacob Lawrence and William Johnson.
* Cinquaine: A poem consisting of five lines that describes a painting:
Noun
Adjective… Adjective
Gerund… Gerund… Gerund
A four-word Sentence (describing the object)
Synonym of Noun (from first line)
