Statues

This lesson includes an introductory image of “The Statue of Liberty” that may be displayed on a projector screen. A YouTube video is available for young students as a warm-up/hook for “The Statue of Liberty”. Additional materials and samples are hyperlinked within the Google Slide presentation. At pre-selected points, the teacher can pace learning to guide specific questions, in order to assess a baseline of students’ prior knowledge of a world-known art image (e.g., The Statue of Liberty). Teachers will guide students to understand the concept of a statue as opposed to the concept of an image/photograph. This initial watch and talk activity intends to present a new concept to students about photograph versus statue; life-size versus monumental scale.

This lesson provides digital images, audio recordings, videos, a variety of hands-on traditional drawing, non-traditional/innovative clay activities, and digital activities to engage students in learning about visual art content (sculptures and monuments). The Statue of Liberty is a starting point for students to engage in critical thinking, group discussions, and appreciation of a new art form (sculpture, statue, monuments). Other topics may be explored by teachers as they see fit to further discuss careers and professions in Visual Arts, art vocabulary application, Social Studies, and History. Students will gain an understanding that art is made by people. Art can be displayed outside of school as well as inside school (NCAS#6). Art can be a drawing, painting, small, or monumental like The Statue of Liberty etc.

This lesson uses PowerPoint/Google Slides with prompts, open-ended questions, hyperlinks, and activities with enlarged image details. At pre-selected points, the teacher will conduct open-ended questioning and critical thinking, hands-on activities, as well as provide students opportunities to use a digital learning platform, in order to draw more students to participate in art appreciation and communicate their various observations. Text Information is interactive with audio and visual images for both in-person, hybrid, or remote students. A teacher voice-recording with instructions is available for Pre-K and Kindergarten students that don’t read yet. All elementary-level students Pre-K through 5th grade are highly encouraged to use iPads or laptops to post photographs of their learning into the teacher’s choice of digital platform: Seesaw, Canvas, Padlet, Jamboard, or Google Docs. Upper elementary students will engage in the history of a local statue, compare and contrast the information gained from the Statue of Liberty. This will help them gain a greater appreciation of the significance and a greater understanding of artwork (public art) collected and preserved in their own neighborhood.

Every statue has a story; who, how, and what it represents. A statue is a piece of preserved public art that cultivates curiosity, appreciation, wonder, understanding, and engagement of the viewer, whom attempts to “read” and interpret it. How do objects, artifacts, and artworks collected, preserved or presented, cultivate appreciation and understanding? (Pr6.1). In this lesson, the learning objectives for students are pointed out by the NCAS grade levels standards. These standards provide open-ended conditions for teachers to prompt thinking, engage in activities that involve students in participating in small or large groups, and hands-on activities involving verbal and visual arts responses to this content. In this lesson, there are multiple pathways to assess students’ learning as well as assess their cultural levels. The teacher will provide opportunities for students to create a self-portrait-like statue using natural clay (student Pre-k sample, and/or pizza dough sample), expressing an image of their identity: what object would students create to represent what they uphold as most important to them: a book, a brush, a toy, cell phone, etc. The teacher can collect information about students’ prior consciousness level about world-known public art, students’ ability to listen to and/or respond to content. They can also do formative assessments about students’ developmental visual art level as they draw, and create a self-portrait statue, and finally, digitally present the concept learned by posting their artwork into school-supported platforms. By learning to post their own artwork into digital platforms, students are empowered to voice interests and participate in curriculum and instruction. The learning objectives are rigorous and draws from guidelines of National Visual arts Standards. Classwork/hybrid/online activities invite students to participate in the analysis of multiple images and audio resources included in this Google Slide. The lesson objectives focus on the ability of students to apply critical thinking skills as they listen to, analyze, and summarize ideas about what is seen as well as creative thinking skills to make meaning of ideas and/or thoughts. Students will also apply problem-solving skills as they manipulate a new material available (natural clay or pizza dough) to create and present their artwork. The end goal is the student understanding that the presentation of artistic work (either talking about and/or posting their clay or pizza statue on a digital platform) conveys meaning and understanding.

In this lesson, students will engage in learning to access digital information about the content and making use of digital platforms as tools for communication. Students will learn about the artist(s) who created The Statue of Liberty, about the monument, the geographical location of this monumental statue, they will compare and contrast with the students’ own geographical location, and learn about the how and why the artist made the artwork. Is creating art a universal human means of communication? This approach is reflective of the teacher’s philosophy and contains various tools to interact with students to assess students’ level of interest and skills. 

Technology will enrich teachers’ methods with this paced lesson and its multiple age-appropriate texts, links, images, audios, students’ artwork examples, and a teacher demonstration video on the process of “how to create”. Multiple means of action and expression means that this lesson will provide students with the opportunity to utilize different tools to think about, and communicate about their artwork. Examples are by word of mouth, drawing, sculpting, and by using the digital platform provided by their school (e.g., Seesaw, Canvas, Padlet, Google Docs, etc.). In-person teachers have the opportunity to project this lesson on a screen and guide rich small or large group discussions. 

Hybrid and Online students can independently complete the Google Slide activities by clicking on hyperlinks and visual exemplars.

Formative assessment in the form of anecdotal notes is used to inform students’ thinking and provide information about the supports needed both for the content and for the approach to teaching and the processes. A Lesson Rubric for art-making is provided to assess fine motor skills and visual arts developmental levels.

The purpose of each performance task is to give students multiple ways to express and/or communicate their knowledge about the content through hands-on activity, drawing, moving, and discussions. In an ideal classroom environment, teachers may encourage students to ask questions, and communicate their thinking about real-world public art and monuments as well as to capacitate students to expand discussions towards a better understanding of history, society, and arts in their community and other parts of the world.

Each performance task addresses the UDL principles by offering students multiple ways of expression; creating with natural clay or pizza dough, utilizing iPads to post their own artwork, moving their bodies, drawing, and talking about content. The teacher can project all students’ artworks on the screen in order to show their classmates by using the Padlet platform.

Students’ learning and skill levels will be assessed with a provided lesson rubric. Student participation in small or large groups is also an important checkmark aspect of learning; equally important to the ability to independently produce and digitally publish own artwork. How does the presentation and sharing of your selfie-sculpture influence and shape ideas and experiences? (Essential Questions Standard #6).

Please be intentional as you choose historical figures and events to represent in this lesson. Consider curating visuals and stories that represent more than a single historical perspective. Diversify your materials to include perspectives and stories that have not traditionally been centered in the use of historical narratives within typical and commonly used curricular materials. Draw from multiple historical narratives. Pay special attention to the annotations provided in this lesson around materials  and resources.

This lesson includes an introductory YouTube video for kids as a warm-up/hook about The Statue of Liberty. Additional material is included in the Google Slide presentation provided here. At pre-selected points, the teacher paces learning to specific questions, in order to assess a baseline of students’ prior knowledge of a world-known art image (such as The Statue of Liberty).

Assuming that art is about 35-45 minutes once a week, this lesson can be divided into 3 sessions, each about 45 minutes:

• Session 1: introduction of content with videos, open-ended questions, discussion, and drawing.
• Session 2: creating a self-portrait mimicking The Statue of Liberty (traditional or non-traditional materials).
• Session 3: discussion and drawing, compare and contrast the monumental scale of The Statue of Liberty and your local/community Statue.

Students will create their own self-portrait (material of choice: natural clay, playdough, soap, or flour dough) in the form of a sculpture, just like the Statue of Liberty. 

The Statue of Liberty is a monumental form of “public art” that conveys meaning. Public art is free of charge and available to anyone to appreciate its beauty and understand its meaning and story, as opposed to indoor paintings, drawings, and sculptures kept indoors in art museums. – How do artworks (The Statue of Liberty) collected, preserved, or presented cultivate appreciation and understanding? (Essential Question Standard #6)

This unit provides three modes of learning, including the universal language of body movement, drawing in response to understanding and observation, and a hands-on activity that includes creating their own self-portrait using traditional or non-traditional materials. Upper-elementary students go further into higher-level discussions and a higher level drawing activity by comparing and contrasting. The goal is to bring students meaning and bring them closer to art in their own community. The original lesson includes 3 sessions and will last an estimated 3 weeks. An extended version of this lesson may consist of developing a new unit on other modalities of self-portraits, such as relief self-portraits (in coins), bust carved self-portraits, and painting self-portraits.

At the end of each session, as part of closure/reflection practices of the day’s learning, students will post a photograph of their self-portrait sculpture into the school platform (e.g. Padlet, or Jamboard, or Seesaw, or Google docs, etc).