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Portraits That Capture Character
Students explore the definition of a portrait. In this portrait analysis lesson, students discuss two of Dorothea Lange's portraits and create their own portraits of their classmates.
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Self Portrait Ideas
Students review multiple ideas for creating a self portrait including abstract versions, PowerPoint presentations, sculptures, ceramic plates, photography and shadow boxes. They create self portraits.
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Self-Portraits
Eighth graders practice the techniques of color, face proportion, emotion through color, and how to integrate handheld applications in Art projects in this Art lesson for the 8th grade classroom. Self-Portraits are used and emphasized in...
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Looking At People in Portraits
This resource can be adapted for all grade levels! Intended for learners within easy access of the Getty Center, you could still set up a gallery in your own classroom to achieve similar results. Included is a writing prompt, a...
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Art Self-Assessment
Reflection is a wonderful way to understand yourself as a learner or as an artist. Kids write a one-paragraph analysis of their own self-portrait. They focus on style, character traits, and self characterization.
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An American President in American Art
Learners discuss the life and death of both Elaine De Kooning and the president she painted, John Kennedy. They learn how Kooning chose to describe President Kennedy through abstract expressionism and why her choice of color and shape...
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Pride and Prejudice: List-Group-Label
What words would you use to describe Mr. Darcy? What about Elizabeth? Use vivid vocabulary to create lists of adjectives to describe the characters of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. After kids come up with their own lists of words,...
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Who am I?
Students develop their writing skills by creating a character sketch about themselves. Students read character sketches, view portraits by famous artists, select one personality traits, and affix a mug shot of themselves into a famous...
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Historical Witness: Social Messaging
Students create a self portrait using symbols that represent them. In this self portrait lesson plan, students look at a nineteenth century painting and discuss the symbols that represent this era. They then recreate a dance in the...
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Pride and Prejudice: Biopoem
Describe yourself or a character from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with a biopoem activity. Using the provided format, kids write their own characteristics or the character traits from the novel to create a poetic portrait.
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Exploring Elizabeth I-Coronation Portrait
Students explore Queen Elizabeth I. In this role playing lesson, students dress up as Queen Elizabeth I and take pictures. Students discuss the coronation portrait of the Queen and discuss why she isn't smiling.
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Portrait Detectives
Learners distinguish portraits from other forms of art and develop their own criteria for analyzing portraits. They discuss what is unique about a portrait, why artists create portraits, and the style of portraits.
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Three-Dimensional Portrait
Students create a three-dimensional portrait of a person, or character. They base the portrait on historical, cultural, stylistic, and artistic themes.
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Celebration and Satire- Beginning Level
Learners examine art elements in a late-19th-century self-portrait painting. In this visual arts lesson, students analyze the painting "A Centennial of Independence" and identify the color, shape, and symbols in the art piece. Learners...
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Picturing Hemingway: A Writer in His Time
Students analyze portraits of Ernest Hemingway to see how his private and public personalities are revealed through them. In this "Picturing Hemingway" lesson, students complete a variety of activities to investigate public and private...
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Breaking the Chains, Rising Out of Circumstances
Learners investigate a sculpture from the 17th century. In this art history instructional activity, students examine Bust of a Man by Francis Hardwood and discover the meaning behind it. Learners create their own portrait bust of...
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Character Found Poems: Investigating Language in Twelfth Night
Students create found poems to represent characters in Twelfth Night. In this Shakespeare instructional activity, students discuss how to compose found poems and select characters from the play to write their poems about.
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The Stranger Redeemed: A Portrait of a Black Poet
Read and analyze poems by African-American authors. Using the text, they identify the various patterns, subjects, language and dialects used. Then team up to compare and contrast the various authors and define new vocabulary. The lesson...
Film English
Theo’s Story
Encourage your class to consider a beautiful short film about a boy named Theo who happens to be visually impaired. Over the course of the lesson, pupils work in pairs, discuss their ideas and the film as a class, view the film, take...
Digital Public Library of America
Teaching Guide: Exploring Little Women
Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is a literary masterpiece as well as a timestamp of the formative mid-nineteenth century in America. Using a primary source set of photographs, letters, and portraits, readers discuss the ways...
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Looking at Portraits: Reading Poe
High schoolers compare the daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe by an unknown photographer with Poe's writings in an effort to discover the character of this mysterious author.
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Different Points of View
Considering an examination of point of view? Use visual arts to engage learners in of this element of art and literature. Class members select a portrait from the Renaissance Connection and, guided by a series of brainstorming...
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My Antonia: Body Biography Book Report
Examine the characters in Willa Cather's My Antonia with a group project. Small groups illustrate their chosen character on a large piece of paper and choose quotes from the text that tell about the character. Where students choose to...
Advocates for Human Rights
All about Me!
Celebrate the uniqueness of your students with this character building lesson series. In order to learn about and appreciate diversity and individuality, children create All About Me books by cutting out and drawing pictures that...