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Additional Materials

Members of The Speed Art Museum’s 2000-2001 Teacher Advisory Board have prepared these lesson plans to compliment a tour of the Jacob Lawrence special exhibition at the Speed. Please feel free to adapt these materials to suit the needs of your class and your own teaching style.

Teacher Advisory Board members come from school communities throughout the Louisville metropolitan area and represent a variety of positions and interests. Our membership includes arts specialists, as well as parents, teachers, and administrators from the Primary, Intermediate, and Middle/ High School grade levels. The common bond for the group is an interest in seeing The Speed Art Museum serve the community as a valued cultural resource.

Primary Level Lesson Plans (grades K — 3)

Submitted by Colleen Simpson of Mill Creek Elementary

Lesson Plan / Classroom Activity:

Introduction — Teacher reads sections of the children’s book "Story Painter", which profiles Jacob Lawrence and his work. Brief teacher-led discussion of 2 or 3 specific paintings stressing: subject, elements of art and principles of design. The teacher will also want to address Lawrence’s interest in Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman as subjects for his paintings.

Students will then produce their own painting as inspired by Lawrence’s work. The student paintings may be displayed singularly or as a part of a mural, perhaps connected to a map of the underground railroad.

Teacher can play appropriate music while students produce art work.

Grade Level: 1-3 grade

Subject Area / Curriculum Area:

Visual Art (Elementary) with connection to S.S. and Music

Core Content / Performance Standards Links:

SS-E-2.1.1
AH-E-4.1.32 AH-E-4.1.33
AH-E-4.1.34 AH-E-4.2.31,

Materials / Equipment Required:

• "Story Painter" book
• reproductions of Lawrence’s work
• paint, paper, brushes, etc.
• Cassette Player and "Songs of the Civil War" tape.

Motivational tools or approach:

The reading of "Story Painter", reproductions of Lawrence’s work dealing with Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass on display — music of civil war playing as students enter classroom.

Follow-up activity:

Students do an open response comparing / contrasting two of Lawrence’s works as shown during project using Elements of Art and Principles of Design.

Intermediate Level Lesson Plans (grades 4 — 5)

Submitted by Art Educator Susan Livermore

Lesson Plan / Classroom Activity:

Jacob Lawrence 1917 - 2000

1. Facts about Lawrence as artist and teacher including influences.
2. View and read selected paintings pp 42-46. Jacob Lawrence, Catalogue Raissone about Harriet Tubman, View pp 124, and 126 in Over the Line.
3. Details of Tubman’s life.
4. Use in class or assign for home www.artsednet.getty.edu , Jacob Lawrence: Story Teller.

Grade Level: 4^th & 5^th grades

Subject Area / Curriculum Area:

Art, Social Studies

Core Content / Performance Standards Links:

SS-N-5.1.3
AH-N-4.2.32

Materials / Equipment Required:

• Tempera paint, brushes
• heavy paper, pencils
• erasers
• rags
• water containers
• tape player, tape — "Songs of the Civil War"

Time Frame:

30 minutes for 1 to 4 — 10 minutes discussion of Lawrence’s methods (below) 10 minutes begin drawings.

2^nd lesson - Continue drawings, choose colors, paint using method described below.

3^rd lesson — Complete paintings and write narrative caption

Motivational tools or approach:

A trip to the Jacob Lawrence special exhibition at The Speed Art Museum.

Sequence of the Session / Activity:

First, a well-developed under-drawing is completed using a pencil. Jacob Lawrence always used water-based paints. He wanted a fast drying medium that was matte and opaque. He used small sized paper because of "economics." In the Tubman series, he used hardboard panels with a ground of rabbit skin glue and whiting and casein tempera paints. He made his own casein from dry pigment. He used unmixed colors so that he wouldn’t have to remix colors from panel to panel. Lawrence only added white to obtain lighter shades. Using that approach, Lawrence painted a particular color in each of the series panel all at the same time. When he would finish with that color, he would then move onto the next color and paint in each panel across the whole series!

1. Make pencil drawing from a scene in Tubman’s life.

b. Use "Paint on either side of line technique." — Examples on pp. 255 & 256 of Over the Line. Use on details of figures or try on details of landscape in escape scenes — Paint up to edges of lines, then let paper show through to create details.

2. Write narrative captions.
3. Play CD during working period.

Reference: Jacob Lawrence: Catalogue, Peter Nesbett & Michelle DuBois

Over the Line, University of Washington Press, Seattle and London

Middle School Level Lesson Plans (grades 6, 7, 8)

Submitted by Andy Perry of Noe Middle School

All of these exercises can be adapted and used with other projects.

BEGINNING

A good way to get the class involved in these exercises is to begin with a group warm-up that allows the class to work together, establishing a comfort level where no one is expected to perform for an audience. A good exercise is to have an open space and ask the class to walk around the space silently. Continue emphasizing that this is a non-verbal exercise. Tell them to move in a different direction from everyone else in the room and they are to try to cover all the empty floor space while keeping the same distance away from their classmates. At your signal, they are to freeze into a dynamic shape (a shape that is full of energy). As the instructor, you might do this exercise with them. If they copy your dynamic shapes, do not worry as acting is a form of imitation. Ask them to use their entire bodies: hands, arms, legs, face. Direct them to use levels: form a dynamic shape close to the floor or up on tip-toe or anywhere in between. Tell them to try and be different from anyone else in the room.

Next, tell them that you are going to count to 3 and at 4 they are to freeze into a dynamic shape. Then immediately count to 3 again and they are to move into the next dynamic shape. Next, tell them that as they move from shape to shape, they are to move in a dynamic way and freeze in a dynamic shape "1,2,3, Freeze, 1,2,3, Freeze, etc."

This exercise will get them involved in moving without thinking about what they are forming and with the entire class involved, no one is asked to perform for an audience.

I have found this to work well with my students with physical disabilities. If they are in a wheelchair, have them move about the room, if they are not mobile: this exercise can be done while sitting.

While the following exercises are used in conjunction with The Speed Art Museum exhibition of the works of Jacob Lawrence, they are not meant in any way to trivialize slavery and the toll it took on our culture and society. No amount of theatre work in the classroom could begin to duplicate the condition of slavery nor would one want to ask the student to experience the horrible physical and mental conditions that slavery inflicted on the individual.

STATUS EXERCISE

KDE Academic Expectation

1.3 Observing
1.4 Listening

KDE Core Content for Assessment

• Identify and describe the characters, their relationships, and their environments using a short script or story
• Select and communicate information about people, time, and place related to a script, scenario, or classroom dramatization
• Communicate information about people, time, and place to selected dramatizations

This exercise shows how status is used as a dramatic element and how it can be used as a way to develop a dramatic character.

• What is status? (With Primary and Intermediate define status for them. Ask them how they feel when they are with their friends, with their parents, with their minister, priest, rabbi, or other authority figure. Did they have power or authority to act?)
• How is status determined?
• Does status change?
• How does it change and when does it change?
• Do you have the same status in the classroom as you do alone with your friends?

Ask the class to walk around the room with their normal or neutral walk. They are to explore the space as they walk. Instruct them that when you say go, each of them is to choose a status on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being very low status and 10 being very high status. Their walk is to reflect their status level and they are to reflect their status in how they deal with other people as they explore the space.

Is a slave high or low status? Is a slave high or low status all the time? Will a slave have a different status when with his/her Master than when with his/her family and friends? How would a slave walk, talk, move, hold his/her body around a person of higher status (the slave owner, his family, and other non-slave people)? How would the slave walk, talk, move, hold his/her body around other slaves? How does status reflected in a person’s (actor’s) physical presence and how does a person’s (actor’s) physical presence reflect their perceived status?

CREATING A STORY

KDE Academic Expectation

2.25 Cultural Heritage
2.26 Cultural Diversity

KDE Core Content for Assessment

Identify and describe the characters, their relationships, and their environments using a short script or story.

Read or imagine a story of an escaped slave making their way to Canada (Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter or Follow the Drinking Gourd by Bernardine Connelly, Yvonne Buchanan are both good books for this exercise). Tell the story aloud to the class. Choose 4 or 5 moments in that escape trip and create each moment as a tableau. Then, connect the moments with the story and act out the story as you move from moment to moment until the story ends with the escaped slave arriving in Canada or being recaptured. Now, as someone tells the story, have the class move through the story smoothly, taking the audience from the escape to freedom or recapture.

BRINGING THE PAINTED IMAGES TO LIFE

KDE Academic Expectation

1.3 Observing

KDE Core Content for Assessment

• Identify and describe the characters, their relationships, and their environments using a short script or story
• Select and communicate information about people, time, and place related to a script, scenario, or classroom dramatization
• Communicate information about people, time, and place to selected dramatizations
• Assume roles that communicate aspects of a character.
• Identify and compare similar characters and situations in stories and dramas.
• Discuss how theater reflects life.
• Demonstrate acting skills toward character development.
• Analyze descriptions, dialogue, and actions in script text to articulate and justify character motivation

Choose one of the images from the Jacob Lawrence exhibit. Choose an image that depicts many images of people (Frederick Douglass Series, image no. 3, 9, 11, 13, 18, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, or any of the Harriet Tubman paintings depicting groups of people).

Have the part of the class freeze into a tableau, reproducing the painting. Have the rest of the class identify the focal point of the image. Have the students concentrate on that focal point when reproducing the composition. Ask each person in the tableaux to image what that character is thinking, what has happened before the image was frozen, what will happen when they start to move. Begin "activating" the image by having the students make noises as their characters. At the teacher’s signal, the student "activate" the tableaux and begin moving and talking as the characters they are portraying.

Ask the students to again freeze in the original scene. Now, take the action backwards so that the student actors enact what has happened before the depicted scene.

Now, run the scene from what is happening before the painted image and on through the action after the frozen image.

Ask the student actors how they felt depicting these people, what were they thinking and how did they interact with others in the scene. Try combining this with the idea of status: what was the character’s status in the group?

STORYTELLING

KDE Academic Expectation

1.3 Observing
2.25 Cultural Heritage

• Identify and describe the characters, their relationships, and their environments using a short script or story
• Select and communicate information about people, time, and place related to a script, scenario, or classroom dramatization
• Communicate information about people, time, and place to selected dramatizations

Choose an image from the exhibit or any quality, representational, 2-dimensional image. Ask the class to look at the image and image what story that image is telling. Ask someone to share his or her story with the class. Use one of the above exercises to act out the story. When everyone has shared their story with the class, tell the class what the image actually depicts. Does it agree with the student’s stories? How does it differ? Are the same emotions communicated? Are the same ideas communicated through different stories? How did the 2-dimensional image communicate the artist’s ideas?

Photo by Marvin Young

Ask the students to choose one depiction of a person from the image. Ask the student to describe that person and how the student actor might show elements of that person through physical movement. For example, an older person might be depicted stooped over, walking with a can, etc.

Recommended books:

Polsky, Milton E., Let’s Improvise, Applause Theatre Books

Spolin, Viola, Improvisation for the Theatre, Northwestern University Press

Spolin, Viola, Theater Games for the Classroom, Northwestern University Press

Submitted by Jim Lobley of Louisville Collegiate

Lesson Plan / Classroom Activity: Following the listening of songs written from the experience of slavery and escape. This exercise engages students in composing lyrics to familiar songs that tell a story, based on three Lawrence’s paintings.

Grade Level: 6-9

Subject Area / Curriculum Area: Music, History, Language, Performance

Materials / Equipment Required:

• Video: "Songs of the Civil War"
  
• Jacob Lawrence paintings, either at museum or from slides/catalogue

Time Frame: 1 hour to tour exhibit or 30 minutes to view slides.

1-2 class periods to write and edit songs.

1 class period to perform songs.

Motivational Tools or Approach: Discussion of songs linked to particular historic events. Could be sparked by clip from the movie "Glory". Examples of use of the arts to tell stories. Lawrence’s paintings. Selections from "Songs of the Civil War."

Sequence of the Session / Activity:

1. Students introduced to activity/theme prior to trip. (See above.)
   
   a. Students have option of 3 familiar songs: "America, the Beautiful," "Battle Hymn of the Republic," "Amazing Grace," etc.
   
   
2. Students tour exhibit, identifying 3 paintings they spark imagination, and that can be viewed as a sequence that tells a small piece of the slavery story.
   
   a. Students take notes or jot down impressions, even phrases or bits of lyrics that can be crafted into lyrics.

1. Students craft their lyrics. Lyrics must include 3 stanzas and a refrain.
2. Students write/type lyrics in form that may be copied.
3. As a group, students sing each other’s songs, and discuss their effectiveness.

Questions:

What is it about songs that makes it effective as a storytelling device?

What role did songs play at the time? ("Follow the Drinking Gourd" or "Songs of the Civil War" video.)

More abstract; talk about musicality in Lawrence’s paintings. If his paintings (choose one) could be translated into music, how would it sound?

Extended Activity: Show slides of Lawrence’s paintings while playing different types of music in the background. How does the music change your perception of the paintings?

High School Level Lesson Plans (grades 9, 10, 11, 12)

Submitted by Corie Nuemayer of Du Pont Manual High School

Lesson Plan / Classroom Activity: Students plan a painting that could be a "Lost" Jacob Lawrence painting

Grade Level: High School

Subject Area / Curriculum Area:

General Art, Drawing/Painting, Humanities

Core Content / Performance Standards Links:

AH-H-4.1.31 AH-H-4.1.32 AH-H-4.1.33
AH-H-4.2.31 AH-H-4.2.32 AH-H-4.2.33
AH-H-4.2.34

Social Studies Survey of the Social Sciences Grade 8 (Performance Standard) Student uses real-life examples to show how the rights of an individual may be in conflict with the right of another individual or group or the government.

Social Studies — World Civilization Grade 10 Performance Standard. The student analyzes and evaluates the historical impact of significant individuals or groups.

Materials / Equipment Required:

• Jacob Lawrence reference books including "Harriet and the Promised Land" , and the Exhibition Catalog.
• Slides of Jacob Lawrence’s work or large reproductions.
  
• Video on Jacob Lawrence’s life and work (if possible)
  
• Sketch Paper
  
• Pencils
  
• Paper or board on which to do the painting
  
• Tempera or acrylic paint

Time Frame:

Two hours of preparation and planning before viewing the exhibition

Three hours of adjusting original plan and producing the painting

Motivational Tools or Approach:

Jacob Lawrence books, Video, Slides, Catalog and any of images of Jacob Lawrence’s work.

Sequence of the Session / Activity:

Before the visit to the museum

1. Students discuss the work of artists who depict historical events from the early Greeks to Picasso, to current artists.
2. Discuss sequential art, and art in series.
3. Look at slides and/or books that show the work from the Jacob Lawrence exhibition.
4. Discuss his depiction of the events.
5. Discuss the composition, shapes, colors and perspective that Jacob Lawrence used.
6. Plan a painting based on an event from the past fifty years that could be mistaken for a Jacob Lawrence painting. (Time frame optional)
7. Visit the Exhibition

After the Visit to the Museum

1. Discuss the information obtained from looking at the originals as opposed to the reproductions.
2. Make any necessary revisions to original plan.
3. Produce a painting in the style of Jacob Lawrence

11. Mount an exhibition of the "Lost" Jacob Lawrence paintings.

Submitted by Kay Twaryonas of Seneca High School

Lesson Plan / Classroom Activity: Linking Lawrence’s visual images with written passages of prose.

Grade Level: Middle School — High School

Subject Area / Curriculum Area:

Humanities, English / Language Arts, Art, Social Studies, American Studies

Core Content / Performance Standards Links: AH-H-4.1.34

Materials / Equipment Required:

• Poetry anthologies
• songbooks, the video "Songs of the Civil War"
• poetry websites
• song lyrics websites
• exhibit catalog
• Jacob Lawrence exhibition slides.

Time Frame:

2-3 days — set-up, homework, presentation or longer as teacher sees it fit.

Motivational tools or approach:

View slides, discuss museum visit observations, read some poems and discuss their meanings and interpretations, model exercise for students with example(s).

Sequence of the Session / Activity:

Many fine anthologies of African-American poetry are available in libraries and bookstores, some general, some female poets (which might be appropriate for the Tubman paintings).

Have students choose an image from either Frederick Douglass or the Harriet Tubman series of paintings (slides shown) or images duplicated from the catalog. Make available to students anthologies of African-American poetry or the lyrics of folk songs, slave songs, spirituals, etc.

Ask students to choose a poem or song lyric to match with their selection from the Tubman or Douglass series. Suggest that they may be interpreting the painting through the poem / lyric or interpreting the lyric/poem by referencing the painting. Their approach will depend on their individual learning styles. Students should then compose an explanation / rationale for their choices / matches.

As a final step, duplicate paintings from the catalog or download copies from a Lawrence website (several available) for students and have them produce a poster detailing their match and the rationale for it. Have each student exhibit his/her poster and perhaps read the poem or listen to a recording of the song/poem as they view the Lawrence paintings.

Option: Have students write their own poems (odes, a haiku series other forms), compose their own lyrics, or develop appropriate monologues that may have come from Douglass or Tubman for use with their chosen paintings.

Jacob Lawrence Pre-Tour Materials

When you book a tour of the Jacob Lawrence: The Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman Series of 1938-40 exhibition, you will receive a packet of pre-tour materials that will include eight 11" x 14" laminated images. Four of the images are Jacob Lawrence’s work, two are of Jacob Lawrence, and images of both Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Accompanying the eight images is a text booklet outlining significant information about Jacob Lawrence, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass.

* The laminated materials are returned to the museum on the day you arrive for your tour.

Additional Jacob Lawrence Materials

Additional teacher resources are also available on a one-week free rental basis. These include:

• Jacob Lawrence / Children’s Books
  • "The Great Migration"
  • "Story Painter"
  • "Touissant L’ Overture"
• Jacob Lawrence videos
• "The Glory of Expression"
• "An Intimate Portrait"
• PBS American Experience videos
• "Frederick Douglass"
• "Underground Railroad"
• "Follow the Drinking Gourd" video
• "Follow the Drinking Gourd" children’s book
• Cassette tapes of sound track/ freedom + historical songs from Ken Burns Civil War series on PBS
• Complete slide sets of all of the Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass images in the exhibition.

Interested educators can call Manjiri Menezes at (502) 634-2734 to make arrangements.

FREE Jacob Lawrence Teacher programs

• Teacher Preview -Jacob Lawrence: The Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman Series of 1938-40

The Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman series of 1938-40 on Thursday February 15^th, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. and program is repeated Thursday February 22^nd , 5:30 to 7:30 p.m

FREE to teachers, community center staff and teacher education students. Call 634-2734 to register.

Teacher Reception

Thursday, March 8^th from 3-8pm

This FREE event offers area educators a special viewing of this exciting exhibition in an "open-house" format. Refreshments will be served and teachers will be able to tour the exhibition. Reservations are required. Call (502) 634-2700 to register.

Jacob Lawrence Family Activity Area

• A draw-back area featuring a list of evocative words arising from the underground railroad experience, that invites visitors to expand on those word associations and questions by drawing or writing.
• A map/puzzle/maze that recreates an underground railroad journey, with options and choices of routes, and symbol-reading.
• "Seek and find cards" of Lawrence’s symbols (flowers, candles, hands) and that can be taken from the family area into the main galleries and returned.
• Lawrence’s "studio" area/ storyboard area that features removable story elements and visual signs and symbols for visitors to experiment with story sequence and narrative related to exhibit.

Although this area is designed primarily as a family activity area, school groups will have a short visit to the area as part of their guided and unguided tours. Admission to the area is included in the ticket price for the Jacob Lawrence exhibition.

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