Lesson
Plan
Title: Taking Things Personally
Creator: Beth Shaw McGuire, Senior Museum Educator, Ackland Art Museum
Subject: Personal Responsibility
Course: Civics and Economics
Grade Level: 10
Unit Plan: Personal Responsibility/Personal Choices, Personal Paths
Standards:
COMPETENCY GOAL 10: The learner will develop, defend, and evaluate positions on issues regarding the personal responsibilities of citizens in the American constitutional democracy.
Objectives:
10.01 Explain the distinction between personal and civic responsibilities and the tensions that may arise between them.
10.02 Develop, defend, and evaluate positions on issues regarding diversity in American life.
10.03 Evaluate the importance of supporting, nurturing, and educating oneself in the United States society.
10.05 Describe examples of recurring public problems and issues.
Lesson Goals:
• Students will identify different ways that individuals participated in or commented on the Civil Rights Movement, and the tensions that arose from that participation.
• Students will consider what the role of supporting, nurturing, and educating oneself was to individuals living during the Civil Rights Movement.
• Students will identify public problems and issues that Rivers articulates in his work.
• Students will compare events related to the Boston Massacre with those related to James Meredith’s Walk/March Against Fear.
Differentiation:
Small groups of students working on different aspects of the works will be heterogeneous.
Duration: Two 50-minute class periods, more if students do research for and create their artwork in class.
Teacher Materials:
Reproductions of the following works:
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Rivers, Larry 48.4 x 69.5 cm (27-1/2 x 19 in.) |
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Rivers, Larry |
Student Materials:
• Personal responsibility graphic organizer
• Information about Crispus Attics and the Boston Massacre
• Information about James Meredith
• Information about Larry Rivers
Preparation:
One or two days before the lesson, ask students to define personal responsibility, and to provide some examples for each other. Then, ask students to complete the first page of the personal responsibility graphic organizer and read one of three selections about Crispus Attics and the Boston Massacre, James Meredith and the Civil Rights Movement, or the artist Larry Rivers. The readings should be divided relatively equally among the three groups.
Procedures:
Part 1: Responding to personal responsibility graphic organizer. (15 minutes)
1. Ask students to share one answer in each section with a partner.
2. Gather the class’s attention, and ask students for some responses they heard in each section. Note student answers on the board/white board.
3. Ask students to consider how our responsibilities to ourselves interact with our responsibilities to our community, country, and world?
Part 2: Looking at Black Revue (30 minutes)
1. Divide students into three groups based on their readings. (Support heterogeneous groups in terms of abstract reasoning ability level or visual- and non-visual learners.)
2. Show the image Black Revue by Larry Rivers to the students. Tell students that these two works are part of a larger series that Rivers created after receiving a commission for a giant two-part mural about the Boston Massacre from the New England Merchants National Bank of Boston, Massachusetts, which was completed in 1968. Larry Rivers was very interested in history, and was an avid reader.
3. Ask students to consider how their reading relates to the work of art in front of them, make a written list of their findings, and be prepared to share their findings.
4. After about 10 minutes, ask each group to report their ideas. Ask follow-up questions or add information as necessary.
5. If time permits, ask students “Based on the works that you see, how do you think Larry Rivers defined his responsibilities to himself, his country, and the world?”
6. Ask students to jot down any questions that they still have about the work, and to give them to you. (You may want to offer index cards or scrap paper for this purpose.)
Alternative:
If you have longer class sessions, you may want to jigsaw students, thereby
sharing the responsibility of reporting among all members of the group (if you
didn’t require this already).
Part 3: The Role of Individuals (50 minutes)
1. Show students both of Larry Rivers’ prints, and tell them that Rivers often used newspaper photographs, newspapers, and copies of other artists’ prints in his work. Remind them that both of these prints are part of a larger series, and that each print within the series is distinct from the others.
2. Ask students to consider the following questions when looking at both of the works.
a. As individuals, how did James Meredith, Crispus Attics, and Larry Rivers change their respective “worlds”?
b. What do you think Rivers was trying to convey by referring directly to Crispus Attics and James Meredith in his work? How are these individuals similar? Different?
c. Why do you think Larry Rivers compared these two individuals and the events to which they were related in a single image?
d. How does the artist’s use of reproductions of primary or secondary sources change how you think about the Boston Massacre? The Civil Rights Movement? Contemporary society?
3. After 10-15 minutes, ask students to share their ideas with a partner.
4. Ask students to share their most significant ideas with the whole group.
5. Next, ask students to consider the following questions:
a. If Larry Rivers were alive today, what images would his work (painting, sculpture, or prints) contain, and why?
b. What impact would you like to make on the world as an individual? What community, national, and world opinions may support or inhibit your path?
c. What issues or societal problems do you think are significant today? How would you convey these problems visually?
6. Ask students to share their answer to a question verbally with the rest of the class. They will
use the answers to b and c in the culminating activity.
Culminating Activities:
Students will create a work of art that calls attention to the issue(s) or societal problem(s) that they think are significant. They may use newspaper clippings, or copies of details of works of art (not the whole work), and other materials that they think are relevant. If you are planning to exhibit the works in the school’s hallway or media center, consider giving students a size limit. Ask students to articulate how they would like to address that issue(s) or societal problem(s), and how they would approach the inhibiting factors that they identified while answering their question. Before students begin their work, ask them what they think would make such a project successful.
Assessment:
• In class discussions, student contributed appropriately to the discussion.
• Student cited one or more sources of evidence for their reasoning.
• Student’s work of art articulated an issue or problem visually. Works that are very well done are visually interesting to the point that you cannot ignore them.
• Student writing is grammatically correct, as is punctuation.
• Student writing clearly articulates how they would address the societal problem or issue and approach the inhibiting factors.
Supplemental Resources:
• http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1964WALLACE.html (a speech by George Wallace following the passage of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964)
• http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1948HUMRIGHT.html (The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948)
• http://www.gibbesmuseum.org/galleries/fed2.htm (another example of a print from the Boston Massacre series)
• http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/ohara/rivers.htm (references a poem by Frank O’Hara responding to Larry Rivers’ reworking of Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emmanuel Leutze)
• http://www.yuseflateef.com/AboutYusef.html (website about musician Yusef Lateef, a contemporary of Larry Rivers)
Technology Integration:
Students may want to find out more about Larry Rivers, James Meredith, Crispus Attics, the Boston Massacre, or the Civil Rights Movement. They may also want to research their issue or societal issue before creating their works, seeking images or other material related to it to include in their works.
Relevant Websites:
• http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/rivers_larry.html (links to Larry Rivers’ works in other museum collections)
• http://www.tate.org.uk/ (The Tate Gallery has the entire series of prints within the Boston Massacre series. Search by artist’s name coupled with “Boston Massacre” to see only the series, or only by the artist’s name to see a broader range of his work.)
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/6/newsid_3009000/3009967.stm (British Broadcasting Company’s account of James Meredith’s shooting)
• http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/South/09/30/meredith/ (an account of the anniversary of James Meredith’s return to Ole Miss 40 years after his matriculation)
Key Focusing Questions:
• How do our responsibilities to ourselves interact with our responsibilities to our community, country, and world?
• Based on the works that you see, how do you think Larry Rivers defined his responsibilities to himself, his country, and the world?
• How did James Meredith, Crispus Attics, and Larry Rivers change their respective “worlds” as individuals?
• What do you think Rivers was trying to convey by referring directly to Crispus Attics and James Meredith in his work? How are these individuals similar? Different?
• How does the artist’s use of reproductions of primary or secondary sources change how you think about the Boston Massacre? The Civil Rights Movement? Contemporary society?
• What impact would you like to make on the world as an individual? What community, national, and world opinions may support or inhibit your path?
• If Larry Rivers were alive today, what images would his work (painting, sculpture, or prints) contain, and why?
• What issues or societal problems do you think are significant today? How would you convey these problems visually?
File Attachments:
• personalrespgraphic.pub, p. 1 (Publisher document)
This lesson plan and its distribution were made possible by a grant from the Wyeth Foundation, the William Hayes Ackland Trust, and the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
