Anna May Wong | Unladylike2020

Learn about actress Anna May Wong—the first Chinese American Hollywood movie star, producer and one of the most influential style icons of her time, in this resource from Unladylike2020. Throughout Wong’s career, she encountered racism and stereotyping in the roles she was offered, but in the end she found a way to flourish as an actor on her own terms starring in 60 films. Using video, discussion questions, vocabulary, teaching tips, and an in-class activity, students learn about Wong’s place in Hollywood history and how she was impacted by important events in American history, like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and anti-miscegenation laws.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: PBS Learning Media

Shakespeare or Taylor Swift? | Great Performances: Romeo and Juliet

Test your ability to identify if a line is from Shakespeare or Taylor Swift in this video from the National Theater. Cast members from Great Performances: Romeo and Juliet are presented with quotes and have to decide whether they are from the bard of today or the past! Support materials ask students to extend the game by coming up with their own version using a different songwriter.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: PBS Learning Media

Behind the Scenes of the Balcony Scene | Great Performances: Romeo and Juliet

Learn how the National Theater conceived a new version of the iconic Balcony Scene in this behind-the-scenes mini-documentary about the making of Great Performances: Romeo and Juliet. During the ongoing shutdown of London due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Theater created a compelling hybrid of theater and film that brings an exciting contemporary perspective to the play. “Shakespeare’s potential for reinvention is endless,” said director Simon Godwin. “Over 17 days of filming, the company was united by a sense of shared exploration. As well as being given intimate access to the thoughts and feelings of characters, we were able to bring to life remarkable, forgotten spaces at the National Theatre. Desire, dreams and destiny came together to make Romeo & Juliet sing in an entirely new way.”

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: PBS Learning Media

All I Want to Do Is Dance, Dance, Dance!

Students will observe dance movements depicted in a drawing and a painting. Partners will use simple lines to draw their partner's movements and paint dance costumes on the figures using various brushstrokes. Students will write a persuasive speech to the school superintendent explaining why they believe dance should be a regular part of the curriculum. They will then model dance movements for classmates in teams of four and recite their persuasive speech to the class.

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Lesson Plan

The Art and Depiction of Dance (Beginning Level)

Students will learn about an artist's sketchbook that includes drawings of ballet dancers. They will practice two ballet steps and discuss how an artist uses line to depict dancers in rehearsal. Students will make a sketchbook and produce a series of quick sketches of dancers.

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Lesson Plan

The Art and Science of Impressionist Color

Students will learn about the Impressionist painters' use of color and how it connected to early-19th-century scientific theories about color. They will explore combinations of primary and secondary colors, experiment creating secondary colors, and create a landscape using complementary colors.

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Lesson Plan

Arts Lessons in the Classroom: Visual Art Curriculum - Grade 2

A broad range of art is created using concepts of contour and line type, abstraction, color palette, 3-D form, and positive and negative space. Students make both realistic and abstract drawings, relief prints, paintings, and paper sculptures. Literacy-infused lessons include making sketch/journal entries, inventing clay characters and illustrating stories and poems in collage. The K-6 lesson handbooks were originally produced for the Lake Washington School District with grants from 4culture and ArtsWA. Encourage your colleagues, other schools, and organizations to use these materials for non-commercial, educational purposes at no cost by downloading their own copy at: http://artsedwashington.org/portfolio-items/alic-2

Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan, Module, Unit of Study

Author: Washington ArtsEd

Arts Lessons in the Classroom: Visual Art Curriculum - Grade 5

Skills are refined through making pen and ink drawings, watercolor paintings, and sculptures focusing on proportion, value, and scale. Translating words into pictures and pictures into words is investigated through depicting setting, combining shapes for meaning, using color for mood and responding to art. Students also create prints and then explain the printmaking procedure in writing. \The K-6 lesson handbooks were originally produced for the Lake Washington School District with grants from 4culture and ArtsWA. Encourage your colleagues, other schools, and organizations to use these materials for non-commercial, educational purposes at no cost by downloading their own copy at: http://artsedwashington.org/portfolio-items/alic-2

Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan, Module, Unit of Study

Author: Washington ArtsEd

Pa'lante: Onward With Art

Students begin this unit by discussing their relationship with art, and the extent to which they believe art drives resistance movements. Students then participate in a Gallery Walk that highlights how members of the Puerto Rico community in the Young Lords used art to advance their ideas and preserve their culture. Students center the activism of Indigenous peoples in Puerto Rico by studying bomba music and murals. This helps them understand the roots of art—both visual and performance—as activism, and respond to the question: How can understanding Latinidad through art help us confront social and political injustices? Throughout this unit, students work in teams to create a poster series that inspires civic engagement and action on issues of social and political injustice.

Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan, Module, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study

Author: Educurious .

The Art and Ancient Tradition of Storytelling (Advanced Level)

Students will analyze scenes from the Trojan War that are visually depicted in an ancient object and an 18th-century painting. They will research an epic poem inspired by the Trojan War and write a literary response analyzing how themes and values in the poem reflect the historical context in which they were made. Finally, they will work in teams to reframe a tale from the Trojan War in a contemporary context -- visually and in poetry -- and recite the tale in a poetry slam.

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Lesson Plan

Documentary Photography: Photography and Choreography

Students will engage in visual and written activities that will support their creative process of choreographing a solo dance composition. The lesson includes motifs and the movement components -- body, effort, shape, and space (BESS elements from Laban Movement Analysis).

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Lesson Plan

How to use the 4 step process to critique art work.

This is a unit that I have used  for introducing students to the four step process for critiquing art work. I like to use this critique with their design project to reinforce their learning for using the Language of Art. The description (see) part of the activity works well with requiring the students to "Think" about what Elements of Art they used in their design. They are then required to determine how the elements are organized  using the Principles of Design.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Richard Kazmerzak

Arts Lessons in the Classroom: Visual Art Curriculum - Grade 1

These active process-oriented lessons focus on concepts of line direction and type, organic shape, 3-D form, real and implied texture, secondary color, and principles of composition. Literacy-infused lessons explore text direction/spacing, observation, description, and story elements through drawing, painting, collage, clay modeling and printmaking. The K-6 lesson handbooks were originally produced for the Lake Washington School District with grants from 4culture and ArtsWA. Encourage your colleagues, other schools, and organizations to use these materials for non-commercial, educational purposes at no cost by downloading their own copy at: http://artsedwashington.org/portfolio-items/alic-2

Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study

Author: Washington ArtsEd

Creatively Navigating the Design Process With Disaster Islands

Used as an introductory activity in an Exploratory Makerspace and STEAM class, this project is designed to be an introduction to using all steps of the Design Process. Students will work through these steps to identify the problem, imagine a solution, create a plan, build (an island), test and evaluate their solutions.After we talk about these six steps, students are encouraged to solve the simple problem of building an island.  As an instructor, I emphasize that this can be any type of island using any materials we have available, encouraging strong personal choice.  

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Author: Sharla Krell

Oil and Water Art Project

This is an art project where oil paints and water is used. Students will have already explored the densities of oil and water.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Author: Mary Haliburton

Mexican-American history in the United States and the social activism of Chicanx artists as seen through screenprints

This lesson is an introductory lesson to screenprinting and how screen printing is used for social activism. Further study of the historical background that shaped these screenprints (in the extensions section at the end of the lesson) includes topics relevant to Mexican American communities and raises awareness about important historical events in Mexican-American history in the United States. The main focus of this unit is to learn about the background and history of Mexican Americans through studying these and other Chicanx artist screen prints.

Material Type: Interactive, Lesson, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study

Authors: Charis Martin, Oregon Open Learning

The Art of Romare Bearden

The visual narratives and abstractions of this preeminent African American artist explore the places where he lived and worked: the rural South, Pittsburgh, Harlem, and the Caribbean. Bearden's central themes: religion, jazz and blues, history, literature, and the realities of black life he endured throughout his remarkable career in watercolors, oils, and especially collages and photomontages from the 1940s through the 1980s.

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Textbook

How Art You Feeling? | Social & Emotional Learning: The Arts for Every Classroom

Derrick Woods, the gallery teaching manager at Speed Art Museum in Louisville, shows how to play the game “How Art You Feeling?” The idea is to have students express what they’re feeling through art instead of words. Students are asked to do a “full systems check” to consider how they’re feeling beyond simple words like “fine” or “okay.” Students then create art to show these feelings and share their art with a partner, who describes what they see in the artwork. The game encourages students be thoughtful about expressing their feelings. It also helps them learn to consider their partner’s feelings. In the video, the two young women who are game partners discuss the feelings they were trying to express and find common elements in their drawings. The activity helps students develop social awareness and relationship skills.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Lines in the Glass | Frank Lloyd Wright's Buffalo

"Nature furnished the materials for architectural motifs." This quote from Frank Lloyd Wright illustrates his desire to connect humans to the natural landscape through architecture. One successful example of this concept was his design of art glass windows that connected with the trees and leaves outside. Examine the beautiful window patterns Frank Lloyd Wright designed for the Martin House and then design your own Wright-style window inspired by nature. More than a biography of America’s greatest architect, Frank Lloyd Wright's Buffalo is a story of family, friendship and the meaning of home in American life. The program explores how a friendship spanning decades affected the structural aesthetic of a major American city and made a significant impact on architectural history. Buffalo, New York has the unique privilege of having more Frank Lloyd Wright structures than any other city in America outside of Chicago. This collection of architecture is due to one man: Buffalo businessman Darwin D. Martin. The centerpiece of Wright’s work in Buffalo is one of Wright's earliest designs, the Darwin Martin House. Built in 1904, it precedes such masterpieces as the Robie House and Fallingwater and is considered by many as the finest example of his prairie house design. Learn more about the WNED PBS original production here.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: PBS Learning Media

Elements of Art: Line | KQED Art School

Line is one of the seven basic elements of art along with Shape, Form, Texture, Value, Space and Color. These are the building blocks of all art and are a good place to start when making, looking at or analyzing works of art. However, lines are not only limited to drawings. They apply to photographs, videos and anything that is placed anywhere deliberately to convey meaning. Learn about the different types of lines here. Check out the entire collection of KQED Art School videos!

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: PBS Learning Media