VISUAL METAPHORS: Linking Art with Personal Analogies Fourth Grade Integration Unit, Visual Art, Social Studies and Language Arts Curriculum Integration Team South Loop School Paulette Mitchell Visual Art Teacher Maryann Reynolds Fourth Grade Teacher Room 205 Noelle Erickson Fourth Grade Teacher Room 226

UNIT OVERVIEW How does change in our country created by challenges affect the way I live? This school year fourth grade student’s thematic unit for the school years focused on the various regions of the United States. The objective of the Visual Art integration is to introduce regional artist otherwise known in the art world as regionalist. When students where studying the southeast the goal of the visual art integration was to introduce students to a contemporary urban regionalist artist of the southeast. One such artist is the African American Artist Purvis Young of the Overton neighborhood of Miami Florida. I selected this artist because of the fact that his work as a visionary artist incorporates metaphoric themes about his life and his community. The challenges that Purvis Young faced in his life connect with the question of how change affects the way one lives. Students read articles about the artist and used the internet to view his website. Also at the same time, students were studying this region in Social Studies they were also learning about metaphors in Language Arts. This school year fourth grade student’s thematic unit for the school years focused on the various regions of the United States. The objective of the Visual Art integration is to introduce regional artist otherwise known in the art world as regionalist.

PROCESS This assignment was to help students comprehend visual metaphors through personal analogies. Student will write a metaphor about himself or herself identifying or relating to themselves with something outside themselves. Each student’s writing will begin with “I am….” Students created drafts; spelling and punctuation are corrected for final rewrites. Gave reinforcement handouts about metaphors to for better understanding on the way to write a metaphor. Student will type up each personal analogy. Students had to sketch a minimum of four sketches to illustrate the metaphor that they wrote about themselves. During a meeting between student and teacher student had to select which sketch best illustrate their metaphor. It is very important that the writings and drawings connected.

OBJECTIVES Create a foundation for generating artistic ideas and constructing a classroom environment in which students feel comfortable with personal expressions. Writing personal analogies about themselves, reading aloud, discussing concepts and creating illustrations gain multidimensional understanding of metaphors, inspiration for art ideas and to think deeply about art. Interpret self in multiple ways to make connection between self and something else. Make ideas more immediate and aesthetically engaging.

STANDARDS VISUAL ART STATE GOAL 26: Through creating and performing, understand how works of art are produced. STATE GOAL 27: Understand the role of the arts in civilizations, past and present. (Art across time and place) SOCIAL SCIENCE STATE GOAL 17: Understand world geography and the effects of geography on society, with an emphasis on the United States. LANGUAGE ARTS STATE GOAL 3: Write to communicate for a variety of purposes.

RESOURCES “Region Adventures in Time and Place”, 4 th grade Social Science textbook “Just Like Me” Stories and Self-Portraits by Fourteen Artists, edited by Harriet Rohmer

VISUAL ART I CANS Recognize the relationship of parts to the whole in an art work. Describe the use of line in gesture drawing. Identify the positive and negative space in an art work. Use the vocabulary of elements, principles, and tools when describing a work of art. Draw manufactured or natural objects from direct observation.

Clare

Quinn

Ausset

Peggy