Curated OER
Facial Tattoos or Face Painting
Students use a grid-like method to create a life-size self-portrait from a 3X5 black and white photo. They explore the different customs and rituals surrounding face painting from ancient through modern civilizations. Students create a...
Curated OER
Modern Landscapes
Students analyze the artistic responses to the changing landscape during the interwar period. In this art analysis lesson, students analyze landscape images and consider the ways artists depicted the changing landscape. Students complete...
Curated OER
Visual Art and Music
Students examine how pop art compliments music. In this arts lesson, students explore the elements of pop art and replicate those elements in their own piece of art.
Curated OER
Japanese Abstract Art And The Impressionist Movement
Learners study several examples of Japanese abstract art and how this style impacted the Impressionist movement of the 19th century. This lesson includes ideas for student-created sketchbooks.
Curated OER
A Sign of Their Times
Students identify the social climate that created the terms Degenerative Art and Fascist Aesthetic. They also identify how and why certain artists' artwork fell into these categories. Students recognize and discuss the Expressionist...
Curated OER
Write a Short Story
Young scholars compare two paintings, depicting urban life in America in the 1940's, answering a series of questions, then create a short story about the paintings' characters. They compare 'Nighthawks' and 'Nightlife.'
Curated OER
Painting with and Learning From Art History - Extend the Composition
Students create a painting based on an artist from a chosen period in history. They research a modern artist and write a critique.
Curated OER
Open Your Eyes To Art!
Learners help create a colorful bulletin board for classroom art displays in this short lesson for the early elementary classroom. The lesson, which can use a variety of items, includes product ideas and resource links to find very...
Curated OER
Theorem Painting
Students examine the many types of folk art at a museum. They create their own theorem painting by following the steps given to them.
Curated OER
Modern Day Mona Lisa
Students create a portrait of a woman from our current era. They discuss what they would include in a portrait for our era in the U.S., list current trends and styles, and create a modern-day "Mona Lisa" portrait.
Curated OER
Heartfelt/Handmade Activities: Genre Painting
Learners examine genre painting. They explore the Illinois State Museum website, identify how genre paintings were composed, analyze the activities of an Illinois farm in the 1850s, and create a genre painting of current everyday...
Curated OER
PAINTING COLORFUL STORIES INFLUENCED BY JACOB LAWRENCE
Students research the background of Jacob Lawrence and study the music, poetry, and spirit of the Harlem Community that was present during Jacob Lawrence's formative and subsequent art productions. They create a piece of artwork...
Indiana University
World Literature: "One Evening in the Rainy Season" Shi Zhecun
Did you know that modern Chinese literature “grew from the psychoanalytical theory of Sigmund Freud”? Designed for a world literature class, seniors are introduced to “One Evening in the Rainy Season,” Shi Zhecun’s stream of...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series: Removing the Mask
Describe, analyze, compare and contrast poets from the Harlem Renaissance. Critical thinkers analyze the imagery, characterization, tone, symbolism, and historical context of Jacob Lawrence, Helene Johnson, and Paul Laurence Dunbar. A...
Curated OER
Portrait Parody
Eighth graders use modern materials and technology to create a modern portrait modeled after a Renaissance picture.
Curated OER
Neon Signs
Middle schoolers study a commercial art form and explore its historic and social meaning. They apply linear color to a shape, bending and forming the lines in much the same way a sign artist would form glass tubing. They design their own...
Brooklyn Museum
HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture
Visual arts lessons don't always mean the children need to make art. Here, they will practice using their visual literacy skills to analyze four images through the compare and contrast method. The first two images deal with gender...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Lu Shih — The Couplets of T’ang
Writing poetry in ancient China was the modern equivalent of sending a greeting card. Scholars learn about the ancient Chinese poetic form called the lu shih. They read about the context of poetry during the T'ang Dynasty and complete a...
Curated OER
Introduce Vocabulary: Firefighters (Mitten)
Your budding readers know what it's like to get to a word and think, "What does that mean?" Expand their vocabulary in context using Christopher Mitten's nonfiction picture book Firefighters. Get them ready by pre-teaching the new words...
Curated OER
Surrealist Games
Pupils engage in a game of Exquisite Corpse. By looking at a painting by Ren?? Magritte and creating their own Surrealist "room," students further explore the Surrealist idea of placing common objects in unusual locations.
Curated OER
A Modern Pandora's Box
Students research the myth of Pandora's Box. In this mythology lesson, students examine myths and are introduced to the story of Pandora's Box. Students create a modern-day version of Pandora's Box.
Curated OER
Edward Hopper's House by the Railroad: From Painting to Poem
Students analyze Edward Hopper's painting and Hirsch's poem to explore the types of emotion generated by each work. In this literary and art analysis instructional activity, students discuss how Hopper establishes tone and analyze...
Curated OER
Self Portrait Jars: Labeling Ourselves
Seventh graders create an alternative self-portrait. In this art instructional activity students study the artwork of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. Students use her work as inspiration for a self-portrait in a jar form.
Curated OER
Symmetry and Symbols
Learners identify symmetrical and congruent elements in folk art. In this art and geometry instructional activity, students examine pictures of Masonic Plaque in the Form of a Royal Arch Tracing Board for evidence of congruent and...