Later this month I will be presenting at the Illinois Art Education Association state conference on the topic of culturally relevant teaching.  Although I currently teach in a predominantly white community, I still believe in an inclusive art curriculum for all students. 

Last year, my sixth grade students explored artists, musicians and poets of the Harlem Renaissance.  This unit plan is just one example of presenting diverse artists in the classroom.  I chose this unit to begin implementing the newly released Common Core art standards.  Below are the anchor standards, enduring understanding and essential questions for this particular unit:







CREATING
Anchor Standard: Students will investigate, plan and work through materials and ideas to make works of art and design.
Enduring Understanding: Clarity of visual organization supports effective communication.
Essential Questions: How does art and design communicate stories and ideas?  How do artists and designers create works of art that effectively communicate?

6th grade standard: Select and organize images and text to make clear and compelling presentations.
Students will write a poem and select music to accompany their finished artwork and present to the class.

RESPONDING
Anchor Standard: Students experience, analyze and interpret art and other aspects of the visual world.
Enduring Understanding: Understanding the historical and cultural context of an artwork can influence how people respond to it.
Essential Questions: How does art help us understand how people lived in different times, places, and cultures?  How does knowing how people lived in different times and places influence our response to the art?

6th grade standard: Analyze how art reflects changes in time, resources and cultural uses.
Students will analyze artworks by Jacob Lawrence, Lois Mailou Jones and Romare Bearden before and after learning the historical and cultural context.  Students will write a reflection on how this context influenced their interpretation of the artist's work. 

PRESENTING
Anchor Standard: Students will intentionally select and analyze their artwork and the work of others when deciding what artwork to present.
Enduring Understanding: Artists and others select, present, and preserve objects, artifacts and artworks in personal collections and portfolios.
Essential Questions: What is a portfolio? What is a collection? What criteria might be considered when selecting a work for a collection or portfolio?

6th grade standard: Apply established criteria to analyze a collection of art works.
Students will apply our art critique criteria of: Observation, Interpretation, Analysis, and Judgment to a collection of works by Jacob Lawrence, Lois Mailou Jones and Romare Bearden.  Students will use these criteria to imagine which of these works they would select for a personal collection.

This year, sixth grade students will explore The Harlem Renaissance during third quarter.  When I was in sixth grade, we studied The Harlem Renaissance in Language Arts class.  I really enjoyed learning about the many influential artists and decided to develop a unit on this historic period for my students.

We will begin by listening to the music of famous jazz musicians of the time: Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington and Josephine Baker.  While students listen to each of these musicians, they will work together to create an artwork.  We will define the term "imagery" and how certain sounds may make us imagine different colors, lines, and shapes. 

Below are examples of brainstorming activity and collaborative artworks from last year's students:

We will begin the next class by reviewing the term "imagery."  Each student will receive a poem by a famous poet of the Harlem Renaissance (Langston Hughes, Clarissa Scott Delaney, Gwendolyn Bennett, and Claude McKay).  Once they read the poem, students will describe and explain it to their peers.  Students will then draw a picture illustrating their poem.  At the end of class students will share their illustrations and explain how they interpret the poem.

Below are examples of last year's poems and illustrations with a photograph of the corresponding poet.

The next class, students will receive images of artworks by Jacob Lawrence, Lois Mailou Jones and Romare Bearden.  Each student will critique the work briefly in writing before learning any historical/cultural context.

PRESENTING - 6th grade standard: Apply established criteria to analyze a collection of art works.
Students will apply our art critique criteria of: Observation, Interpretation, Analysis, and Judgment to a collection of works by Jacob Lawrence, Lois Mailou Jones and Romare Bearden.  Students will use these criteria to imagine which of these works they would select for a personal collection.

Then we will go to the computer lab to discover more about The Harlem Renaissance.

We will watch an online video produced by teenagers in New York City.  I chose this video for its unique perspective, as the young filmmakers actually traveled into the Harlem community.  The video features footage and information from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research unit of the New York Public Library.

After the video, students will research information online about three specific artists of the Harlem Renaissance: Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, and Lois Mailou Jones.

At the end of class, students will re-evaluate the artwork they had previously analyzed and interpreted.  Each student was asked to write a reflection on how learning about the Harlem Renaissance influenced their reinterpretations. 

Students will choose one of the three artists to inspire their next project.  The subject matter and art media will be completely up to each individual student.  The only requirement is to apply an artist's style to their own work.  For example, the use of color, abstraction, patterns, etc.

RESPONDING - 6th grade standard: Analyze how art reflects changes in time, resources and cultural uses.
Students will analyze artworks by Jacob Lawrence, Lois Mailou Jones and Romare Bearden before and after learning the historical and cultural context.  Students will write a reflection on how this context influenced their interpretation of the artists' work. 

As the projects near completion, students will participate in an in-progress critique.  Their projects will be displayed in front of the class, and their peers will offer complements and suggestions.

Below is an example of the in-progress critique from one of last year's classes

When the projects are finished, students will present their artwork to the class.  Inspired by the music and poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, each student will write a poem and select music to accompany and enhance their artwork. 

CREATING - 6th grade standard: Select and organize images and text to make clear and compelling presentations.
Students will write a poem and select music to accompany their finished artwork and present to the class.

Below are examples of finished student work from last year

When I was in the sixth grade, I was a student in my mom's Language Arts class.  Apart from occasionally getting in trouble for talking with my friends, Language Arts became my favorite subject.  I  can still remember learning about Egypt and World War II, but my favorite unit was on the Harlem Renaissance.  Each student had to choose an important figure to do a biography report on.  I chose Jelly Roll Morton because the name sounded funny to me at the time.  I remember reading some short Langston Hughes poems in class, and learning more about the time period in general.

Fast forward 14 years later and I am teaching sixth grade art at Oregon Elementary School.  I developed units to introduce students to some of the most important periods in art history.  We recently finished a unit on Cubism, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to transition into the Harlem Renaissance.  Cubism extended into the 1920s, which is about when the Harlem Renaissance is considered to have started.

As an art teacher, the obvious choice is to begin with the great painters of this period such as Jacob Lawrence.  Instead I chose to revert back to what initially sparked my interest when I was a sixth grader, and began the unit with music.  Students listened to Count Basie, Josephine Baker, and of course, Jelly Roll Morton.  We talked about the imagery music creates as we listen.  Students worked collaboratively to create figurative and/or abstract drawings with oil pastels. 

The next class period, students were introduced to poets of the Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Clarissa Scott Delaney, and Gwendolyn Bennett.  At our six table groups, each student had a different poem.  After reading the poem independently, students shared their thoughts with the group, and then we had a class discussion about imagery.  I listed their ideas on the board as they shared.  Then each student created an illustration for the poems.

This Friday we will be visiting the computer lab to learn about visual artists of the Harlem Renaissance.  Jacob Lawrence may be one of the most well-known figures, and is one of my personal favorites.  During student teaching I did a mural project based on some of his work.  Students will also discover the work of Romare Bearden and Lois Mailou Jones.  After learning about each of the artists and viewing their work, students will be encouraged to create an original artwork inspired by their favorite of the three artists.  They may work in any chosen two-dimensional medium.  Once their artwork is complete, I would like to encourage them to write an accompanying poem, and/or choose a contemporary song that best describes their artwork.

Hopefully this will be a unit they remember long after sixth grade as I have!