Expressivism and Social Change Lesson Plan

Teachers: Kendall Hutchison and Mallory Belnap
Grade: 5
Time Needed: 45 minutes
Objective: Students will understand how evoking emotions in others can lead to social awareness.


State Standards:
Grade 5 Social Studies
Standard 5
Assess the impact of social and political movements in recent United States history.

Objective 2

Assess the impact of social and political movements in recent United States history.

1. Identify major social movements of the 20th century (e.g. the women's movement, the civil rights movement, child labor reforms).

Grade 5 Language Arts
Standard 8
(Writing): Students write daily to communicate effectively for a variety of purposes and audiences.

Objective 6

Write in different forms and genres.

1.Share writing with others incorporating relevant illustrations, photos, charts, diagrams, and/or graphs to add meaning

Grade 5 Visual arts

Standard 1

(Making): The student will explore and refine the application of media, techniques, and artistic processes.

Objective 3

Handle art materials in a safe and responsible manner.

1. Practice appropriate behavior with sharp or dangerous tools at all times.

Objective 4
Edit written draft for conventions.
Edit writing for correct capitalization and punctuation (i.e., introductory and dependent clauses, dialogue, singular and plural possessives).

1. Edit for spelling of grade level-appropriate words.
2. Edit for standard grammar (e.g., subject-verb agreement, verb tense, irregular verbs).
3. Edit for appropriate formatting features (e.g., margins, indentations, titles, headings). 

http://www.uen.org/core/

National Standards:
Grade 5 Social Studies
What are the Roles of the Citizen in American Democracy?

What is citizenship?

What are the rights of citizens?

What are the responsibilities of citizens?

What dispositions or traits of character are important to the preservation and improvement of American constitutional democracy?

How can citizens take part in civic life?

Grade 5 Visual Arts
5-8.1: Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes

Achievement Standard:

Students select media, techniques, and processes; analyze what makes them effective or not effective in communicating ideas; and reflect upon the effectiveness of their choices

Students intentionally take advantage of the qualities and characteristics of art media, techniques, and processes to enhance communication of their experiences and ideas

K-12 Language Arts

Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

http://www.educationworld.com/standards/


Procedure:

Materials Needed:
Powerpoint
Examples of art from Kara Walker and Jacob Riis

Introduction
Show powerpoint presentation of different art pieces. Have the students write down one emotion they feel while looking at the piece. Discuss in groups: What did you feel while looking at this art? Why did you feel like that? What about the picture made you feel like that? (Colors, staging, lighting, etc.)
Powerpoint Pictures:

The Scream

Woman with Cat

(http://www.margaretzoxbrown.com/images/home_in-the-couch.jpg) Margaret Fox Brown

Gesicht-Expressiv

Lynch Family

Überleben X

by Leonid Afremov
Lesson Focus

• Kara Walker -
  • she just uses silhouettes and shadow puppets to evoke such emotion about her message of the cruelty of slavery

• Jacob Riis & Child Labor Reforms
• • Teach about what child labor is, what initiated the reform, what laws were made, what the laws prevented/changed. (history lesson)
  • Discuss how he used his pictures to bring national attention to child labor in his book How the Other Half Lives
  • Inspired politicians to make changes
  • Forms of child labor, including indentured servitude and child slavery, have existed throughout American history. As industrialization moved workers from farms and home workshops into urban areas and factory work, children were often preferred, because factory owners viewed them as more manageable, cheaper, and less likely to strike. Growing opposition to child labor in the North caused many factories to move to the South. By 1900, states varied considerably in whether they had child labor standards and in their content and degree of enforcement. By then, American children worked in large numbers in mines, glass factories, textiles, agriculture, canneries, home industries, and as newsboys, messengers, bootblacks, and peddlers.
    
    

    Spinning Room, Cornell Mill, Fall River, Mass., Photo: Lewis Hine
    In the early decades of the twentieth century, the numbers of child laborers in the U.S. peaked. Child labor began to decline as the labor and reform movements grew and labor standards in general began improving, increasing the political power of working people and other social reformers to demand legislation regulating child labor. Union organizing and child labor reform were often intertwined, and common initiatives were conducted by organizations led by working women and middle class consumers, such as state Consumers’ Leagues and Working Women’s Societies. These organizations generated the National Consumers’ League in 1899 and the National Child Labor Committee in 1904, which shared goals of challenging child labor, including through anti-sweatshop campaigns and labeling programs. The National Child Labor Committee’s work to end child labor was combined with efforts to provide free, compulsory education for all children, and culminated in the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which set federal standards for child labor.http://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/laborctr/child_labor/about/us_...
    
  • Jacob Riis was on born May 3, 1849 in Ribe, Denmark, and died on May 26, 1914 in Barre, Massachusetts. Riis was a U.S. newspaper reporter, social reformer, and photographer who shocked the U.S. conscience in 1890 by factual description of slum conditions in his book How the Other Half Lives.
    Emigrating to the United States at the age of 21, Riis held various jobs, gaining a firsthand acquaintance with the ragged underside of city life. In 1873 he became a police reporter, assigned to New York City's Lower East Side, where he found that in some tenements the infant death rate was one in 10. Riis employed the newly invented flashbulb technique in photographing the rooms and hallways of these buildings in order to dramatize his lectures and books.
    How the Other Half Lives made Riis famous. The response of the future U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt was: “I have read your book, and I have come to help.” The book stimulated the first significant New York legislation to curb tenement house evils. The illustrations were largely line drawings based on Riis's photographs. A reprint in 1971 included 30 photographs on which the original illustrations were based and 70 related Riis photographs.http://www.history.com/topics/jacob-riis
    

Transition
What are some social issues now? What problems do you see around you?

Assignment
Photography Prompt: Take a photo or find an existing photo (must be on photo paper) that highlights a social problem or  political movement.

Part 2 (2 Days Later)

• Students bring back the pictures they took.
• Have a couple students share the photos and explain why they took it. With each one, ask what it is that is most powerful about the photo.

Materials:
Exacto Knives
Cardboard to protect table
Extra Pictures for the students who forgot
Video about Richard Galpin’s work

Lesson Focus

• Discuss Richard Galpin’s technique and how it can emphasize their pieces and the emotion.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJCTw1vtTl4
• Ex. Cut out picture so only trash shows...emphasize litter. Or cut out trash to emphasize no litter.

• Teach technique and SAFETY with exacto knives. Emphasize not cutting too deep.
  • Might want to research teaching knife safety to kids (http://www.ehow.com/how_7455180_teach-knife-safety-kids.html)
  • Let them know you trust them that they can be responsible
  • 
  • 
  • 
  •  
•  
• Students create their pieces.
• When students are finishing up, have them start working on their assessment to avoid down time and danger!

Editing

• Students write a paper about the issue they chose: how it makes them feel, what they would change, why it is important to them
• Discuss why it is important to edit (practice editing with this worksheet http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/editing/editing-beach_WBNRR.pdf)
• In art, we edited out things that were distracting to the main focus of our message. In writing, we edit punctuation, grammar, structure, etc. so our readers are not distracted from our message. We want to be as clear as possible!
• Have students edit the papers they wrote about the issue they chose.  

There is also a really great editing checklist if you Google search "Fifth Grade Writers Checklist"! It should be the first one that pops up. It is a link to a Word doc, so it won't let me set up a link...

Assessment

• Editing Conference! Pair the students with a partner and have them discuss why editing is important. Have them edit their partner's paper, so they get a more objective view of the value of editing. They will explain to their partner why they edited what they did on their paper. This will help them solidify their knowledge of editing and allow the teacher to evaluate that they have gained this knowledge.

****Alternate artists to use:

Tony Orrico (www.tonyorrico.com) - can use different methods to show expression. PROCESS!!

William Kentridge (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_UphwAfjhk) - more PROCESS with movement!