Wesley Heights Year One
Lori Neuhart- Jen Weisphal
Learning Objective/Exit Outcomes:
- Students will be able to identify the key elements of North American Indian regions such as Southwest, Plains, and Inuit.
- Students will be able to represent these regions of North America through visual art.
- Students will be able to identify these regions through the visual art created by their peers.
Integration Area/Subject:
Social Studies & Visual Art
State Standards:
SS3H1 Describe early American Indian cultures and their development in North America.
- Locate the regions where American Indians settled in North America: Arctic, Northwest Southwest, Plains, Northeast, and Southeast.
- Compare and contrast how American Indians in each region used their environment to obtain food, clothing, and shelter.
VA3.RE.1 Use a variety of approaches for art criticism and to critique personal works of art and the artwork of others to enhance visual literacy.
- Use a variety of approaches to engage in verbal and/or written art criticism.
- Use a variety of strategies to critique, discuss, and reflect on personal works of art and the work of peers.
VA3.CN.2 Integrate information from other disciplines to enhance the understanding and production of works of art.
- Apply art skills and knowledge to improve understanding in other disciplines.
Materials/Playing Space:
Paper, Pencils
Description:
The teacher and PAIR Specialist demonstrated to the class how to fold up a full sheet of paper into three parts. The goal is to have a sheet of paper folded like a tri-fold pamphlet, three equal sections. Then, everyone started at the top of the paper going down, labeling each rectangle #1, #2, and #3. This can be dependent on how you use this strategy, whether you want to have the Relay Drawing as landscape or portrait as the created image gets passed on.
For this Relay Drawing lesson, the teacher had already introduced the content , so this Visual Arts strategy is being used to assess how much information the students have retained from the lessons.
In the top block labeled #1, the teacher asked students to draw their understanding of the elements of the Southwest American region. Students were given 2 minutes to complete their drawing. Then, students were told to fold their #1 Block back behind their #2 block and then fold the #3 block up, covering the #1 block in the back.
Students then passed their drawing to the right one person over. Depending on the setup of your classroom, you can either pass along rows or, in this class, students were sitting in pods of 3-4 together, so we just passed the papers around each individual pod.
Now the artwork being created will have an additional student artist. In the #2 block, the teacher asked students to draw their understanding of the elements of the Plains region in 2 minutes.
At the end of their time, the students will simply flip the folded paper over so the #3 block is facing up. The paper will be passed to the right again, to a 3rd student. In the #3 block, the teacher asked the students to draw the elements of the Inuit region in 2 minutes. Once the last block is filled, the papers would be passed once more to a student who did not draw on the paper they end up with. At this time, all Relay Drawings were transferred to a different pod, so no student was looking at a paper they drew on.
Then, the teacher will ask the students to unfold the sheet of paper so they can see all three drawings and analyze the visual art. The teacher will call on some students to share with the class the visual art they have analyzed and explain their analysis of one of the boxes on their sheet.
- “What do you know about the Plains region based on the drawing you are holding?”
- “What else might you add to the drawing to complete the picture?”
- If something is not correct, ask the student presenting their analysis to explain why a portion of the drawing does not fit in the region depicted and how they would more accurately depict the region being discussed.
Notes:
- As we only got through three regions, the activity can be performed again to cover all regions discussed within the lesson.
- I would also encourage analysis to be written on the opposite side of the sheet drawn on if you do not have time during class to have an open discussion. Have students title each region on the opposite side of the sheet and write a few bullet points of why they know the region depicted are the Plains, Inuit, etc.