Title: Twentieth Century Artists -- Author(s): Kelly Creighton and Jacalyn Groves -- Grade Level: 5th -- Subject Matter: Visual Art and Language Arts -- Synopsis: Introducing Twentieth Century American Artists, producing an essay and a mask which reflects that style.

Title III Learning Experience

LE Title: Twentieth Century Artists	Author(s): Kelly Creighton Jacalyn Groves
Grade Level: 5	School : Edward R. Andrews Elementary
Topic/Subject Area: Visual Art Language Arts	School Address: Box 990, 57 Eaton St. Morrisville, NY 13408
Email: kcreighton@mecs.moric.org jgroves@mecs.moric.org	School Phone/Fax: 315-684-9288 Fax:315-684-7252

LEARNING CONTEXT

Purpose or Focus of Experience

To introduce the fifth graders to the various American artists of the Twentieth Century. It is to have students understand the different styles of an artist by producing an essay and a mask which reflected that style. Students will be familiar with how to write an opinion essay. This lesson would be best done as a collaborative unit with the Language Arts teacher to help support the essay portion of this unit. If this is done as a collaborative unit, the Language Arts teacher may want to use a grade level appropriate rubric for the written portion of this lesson.

Connection to Standards
The Arts

Standard 3: Responding to and Analyzing Works of Art Students will respond critically to a
variety of works in the arts, connecting the individual work to other works and to other aspects of
human endeavor and thought.
Standard 4: Understanding the Cultural Contributions of the Arts Students will develop an
understanding of the personal and cultural forces that shape artistic communication and how the
arts turn shape the diverse cultures of past and present society. English Language Arts Standard 1: Language for Information and Understanding: students will collect data,
facts, and ideas; discover relationships, concepts, and generalizations; and use knowledge
generated from oral, written, and electronically produced texts. As speakers and writers, they will
use oral and written language that follows the accepted conventions of the English language to
acquire, interpret, apply, and transmit information.
Standard 3: Language for Critical Analysis and Evaluation Students will listen, speak, read,
and write for critical analysis and evaluation.
As speakers and writers, they will use oral and written language that follows the accepted
conventions of the English language to present, from a variety of perspectives, their opinions and
judgments on experiences, ideas, information and issues.
2. Speaking and writing for critical analysis and evaluation requires presenting opinions and
judgments on experiences, ideas, information, and issues clearly, logically, and persuasively with
reference to specific criteria on which the opinion or judgment is based.
Students: express opinions (in an essays) about events, books, issues, and experiences, supporting their opinions with some evidence

Essential Question

How are artists influenced by the time period they live in?

Content Knowledge: Declarative, Procedural

Declarative

Know different styles of Twentieth Century Artists.
Know techniques and materials of Twentieth Century Artists.
Understand contributions of Twentieth Century Artists.
Know the steps to access information bookmarked on the Internet.

Procedural

Use Internet to access information
Prepare opinions and support the opinions with art terms.

PROCEDURE
(Chronologically ordered description of all teacher & student activities and interactions.)

The Art teacher will prepare an introduction including prints of about 30 artist from the twentieth century and use this to catch students' interest about particular artist. The KWL brainstorming technique will be used to discuss the influence various inventions (such as the camera, computer, television, etc.) had on the development of various artists and techniques.
Students will come to the Library during their Art class to find information about their particular artist. Students will be shown and given basic directions on the use of the specialized reference books on artists and the general Webster's Biographical Dictionary. Using the Light Screen Projector, the Librarian will model the use of the various websites which the students can use to locate information. All of these sites are bookmarked on the computers in the library and are on the tool bar to make it easier for students to access. Students will be allowed to photocopy the articles they find in books and to print the information they find on the Internet. Students will use research guide questions to locate the necessary information about their artist, their work and the possible influence of the time period.

Students will construct a papier mache mask on a plastic mold. We had a class brainstorming session where each student showed their artist's work and spoke briefly about their artist then, the class helped come up with ideas to show the artist style. The class brainstormed various ways the product could be created. For homework the students made four thumbnail sketches of ideas on how to convey their artist's style on the mask. The materials were only limited to what the students had used previously in art class at any level. The mask could be trimmed on the edges, but the face must remain intact. It could be mounted, laid flat, extensions could be added, etc. Students used three class periods to transform their mask into the style of their artist.

Using the research guide questions, the students were required to write an essay about their artist. They needed to include basic biographical information in one paragraph, the style, technique and medium of the artist in a second paragraph. The third paragraph needed to discuss the student's opinion of the artist based on the questions on their research guide (would you hang the artist's work in your home?, is it interesting, creative,). Student worked on this during art class or at home.

The culminating activity was a class critique where students shared their work and discussed the composition, craftsmanship, and style of each mask design.

INSTRUCTIONAL/ENVIRONMENTAL MODIFICATIONS

The Internet Sites the students are allowed to use are bookmarked on the tool bar on the Library Computers. This makes it easier for the students to locate and use appropriate sites since they do not need to type in the address.
This project included a written and visual project to meet the various capabilities of all students.

TIME REQUIRED

3 periods of 40 minutes in the Library for research and work on the report.
1 period of brainstorming of ideas to show the style of the artist.
Time at home for thumbnail sketches.
4 periods of 40 minutes of studio work in the art room.
1 period of 40 minutes of critiquing works.
Time at home to finish report.

RESOURCES

Print Sources

Merriam Webster's Biographical Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Inc., Springfield, Mass. 1995
Grolier Library of North American Biographies, V.9: Visual Artists, Grolier Educational Corp., 1994.
Artists from Michelangelo to Maya Lin by G. Aimee Ergas. UXL, Gale Research, 1995
Variety of biographical trade books from the Library.
Variety of Posters and postcards from various art museums.

Internet

http://sheldon.unl.edu/HTML/INDEX/biglist.htmlSheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden Artist Index.
http://www.go.grolier.com Grolier On Line.
http://www.askjeevesforkids.com Ask Jeeves For Kids.
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=805&TS=954874430 ProQuest
http://hwwilsonweb.com/ Wilson Web

Worksheet
Teacher prepared to research guide questions about the artist and their work.

ASSESSMENT PLAN
(Include samples of rubrics, checklists, etc.)

Essay Rubric	4	3	2	1
Facts	Included all required facts.	Included most of the required facts.	Included some of the required facts.	Included none of the required facts.
Opinion of work	Very clearly stated and supported by 3 examples.	Clearly stated and somewhat supported.	Opinion is stated but not supported.	Opinion was excluded from essay.
Paragraph and sentence structure.	Paragraphs included 3-5 sentences. Opening and closing sentences were used. Correct punctuation and capitalization were used.	Most of the criteria were met.	Some of the criteria were met.	Few of the criteria were met.
Mask Rubric	4	3	2	1
Style	Artist style very clearly shown.	Artist style clearly shown.	Artist style barely clear.	Artist style not clear at all.
Craftsmanship	Very organized composition and excellent material presentation.	Organized composition and good material presentation.	Either organized composition or good material presentation.	Disorganized composition and poor material presentation.
Creativity	Mask composition exceptionally creative.	Mask composition very creative.	Mask composition somewhat creative.	Mask composition not very creative.

STUDENT WORK
(Include samples of student work showing different levels of performance.)

REFLECTION

This project originally started out as a mask project but evolved into more of a writing project in which students needed to form opinions about their artist and their work. The students needed to have understanding of a style to produce the mask which could only be achieved by those who understood the concept. The mask portion took a long time and in the future the visual part of the lesson may be changed to a group assignment or a less time consuming project.
The books and Internet sites which were used provided enough information for the students. Some artists had more information than others. It might be better to limit the choices of artists to those with ample material available.