Georgia Standards

South Carolina Standards

Key Vocabulary

Materials

• Pencils 
• Variety of skin toned crayons 
• Markers or crayons in a variety of colors 
• Mirrors 
• White paper 
• Oval templates for tracing
• Visual samples of Howard Finster’s portraits 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

• Students will take turns describing their physical appearance (eye color and shape, skin color, hair color and style, face shape, etc.) to a partner. Encourage students to be specific.
• Students will then look at themselves in a mirror. Ask students what new details they can add to their descriptions.
• Allow students to share some of their favorite attributes about themselves.
• Students should create a list of adjectives to describe their physical appearance.

Work Session

CREATING SELF-PORTRAITS

• Show students samples of portraiture art through time to see that it is consistently proportionate, and specifically for this lesson, they will look at Howard Finster’s portraits.
  • Discuss portraits and self-portraits with students, explaining the difference.
• Ask students what similarities and differences they notice in the portraits. Help students identify proportions in portraits and the spatial and size relationships between the placement of eyes and nose, nose and mouth, etc.
• Show students how to use their fingers as rulers to measure their faces (i.e. How long is their nose compared to their index finger? Students will use that form of measurement to recreate their nose on their paper).
  • Show students a visual demonstrating the proper use of line, shape, and proportion to create a portrait.
  • Help students identify which basic shape makes their head (an oval instead of a circle) and which basic shapes can be used to create a nose, a mouth, eyes, etc.
• Provide students with white paper and an oval template to outline.
  • Students will trace the oval on their white paper. This will represent their head.
• Tell students to draw in the details of their faces; remind them of the things they identified in the opening activity.
  • Provide students with crayons representing various shades of skin tones.

INCORPORATING PERSONAL NARRATIVES

• Tell students that they will add a background to their self-portraits.
• Explain that the background is what appears farthest away from the viewer. Show students a portrait with a background, such as the “Mona Lisa”.
• Ask students to visualize a memory such as their first day of school, a favorite trip they’ve taken, etc. Ask them to think about what things they saw, how they felt, etc.
  • Demonstrate to students how to create a horizon line. Explain that what is below the horizon line is on the ground and what is above the horizon line is in the sky.
  • Students will use markers or crayons to draw in the background of their artwork with a scene from their memory. Encourage students to use the entire space on their paper.
• Tell students that they will be writing about their memories.
• Show students images of Howard Finster’s artwork and direct students to notice how he incorporates writing into his art.
• Ask students to reflect on their memory identifying a sequence of events including a beginning, middle, and end.
• Provide students with paper and tell them that they will now write about their memory.
  • Students’ narratives should meet grade level criteria.
    • Include detailed descriptions.
    • Present events in a clear, chronological order.
    • Set up the context, setting and introduce the narrator and characters.
    • Use descriptions of actions, thoughts, and feelings to develop experiences and events or to show characters' responses to situations.
    • Use words and phrases to indicate the sequence of events.
    • Provide a sense of closure.

Closing Reflection

• Students will reflect on their artwork using “two glows and a grow”. Students will identify two things in their artwork and writing that they are proud of and one thing that they would like to improve.
• Provide students an opportunity to share their artwork with the class and explain how their artwork tells the viewer about their narrative

Assessments

Formative

Teachers will assess student learning through observing students’ responses in class discussion and their progress on their self-portraits.

Summative

CHECKLIST

• Students can create a self-portrait using the Elements of Art.
• Students can visualize a memory by creating a background for their self-portrait.
• Students can write a personal narrative about a memory that meets grade level criteria.

DIFFERENTIATION 

 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Ideas contributed: Debi West. Updated by: Katy Betts.

Revised and copyright:  August 2024 @ ArtsNOW

Georgia Standards

South Carolina Standards

Key Vocabulary

Materials

• 12” x 18” sheets of white paper cut into 4” x 18” strips
• Rulers
• Scratch paper
• Pencils
• Colored pencils
• Liquid glue
• Tag board or cardboard sheets

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

• Show students an example of an accordion book. Ask students to identify how an accordion book is similar and different to the types of books that they read in class.
  • Students should notice that many features are the same. The difference lies in the form.
• Tell students that they will be creating an accordion book to tell a personal narrative.

Work Session

Personal Storytelling 

• Ask students to take a few minutes and reflect on the school year.
• Then ask each student to write down as many favorite school memories as he or she can remember on a sheet of scratch paper. Model this process by working alongside your students.
• Next, ask students to see if they can pick out three of the most important memories that they listed and circle them.
• Next, review the parts of a story reminding students that all stories need a beginning, middle, and end.
• Ask students to identify which memory has a beginning, middle, and end and has the most details. This should be the topic for their narrative.
  • Have students fold a sheet of white paper in half, and in half again to make four equal sections. Students will use this paper for their rough drafts.
  • Have students write the setting and characters in the first box.
  • In the other boxes, students should write text and/or draw images for the beginning, middle, and end of their stories.
• Tell students that each page in their accordion book will tell these elements of their story!

Accordion Bookmaking  

• Students will begin creating their books by folding a sheet of paper into equal lengths to create a designated number of panels.
  • In this case, they will need six panels for the inside of the accordion book (two for each part of the plot–beginning, middle, and end) and two additional panels for the front and back covers–eight equal panels total.
• Next, have students trace one panel of the book on cardboard twice. This will be the front and back covers of the book.
  • Students will cut out and glue these pieces to the first and last panel of the folded paper with liquid glue to make the front and back covers sturdy.
• Next, students should transfer what they wrote and drew on their planning paper (rough draft) onto each panel of their accordion book.
  • Each part of the plot should have two panels–one for text and one for illustration. Students should use color in their illustrations to make them come alive!
  • Remind students to use descriptive details and temporal words in their writing.
• Finally, students will design the front and back covers of their books with imagery; they will also include a title for their story and author/illustrator name.

Closing Reflection

• Students should share their accordion book narratives in small groups. Students can share a “grow” and a “glow” for peer feedback.
• Finally, students should complete a “grow” and a “glow” ticket out the door. Students should identify one thing that they think they did well and one thing that they would like to improve upon next time.

Assessments

Formative

Teachers will assess students’ understanding of the content throughout the lesson by observing students’ participation in the activator, discussion of the parts of a story, and conferencing with students during the writing and creating process.

Summative

CHECKLIST

• Students can create an accordion book that tells a personal narrative through text and imagery.
• Students can tell a personal narrative that includes an exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion.
• Students can use descriptive details and temporal language to tell a story.

DIFFERENTIATION 

 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Ideas contributed by: Darby Jones. Modifications, Extensions, and Adaptations Contributed by: Candy Bennett, Patty Bickell, Vilma Thomas, and Lori Young. Updated by: Katy Betts.

Revised and copyright: August 2024 @ ArtsNOW

Georgia Standards

South Carolina Standards

Key Vocabulary

Materials

• • Pencils and erasers
  • Watercolors
  • Paint brushes and water cups
  • Crayons, oil pastels, or permanent black markers
  • 9x12 sheets of mixed media paper

• Optional technology extension: Charged iPad with Kidsdoodle or drawing app downloaded

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

• Project a portrait by one of the Renaissance masters, such as Diego Velazquez’s “La Infanta Margarita” or Raphael’s “Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione”.
• Engage students in the Artful Thinking Routine: See, Think, Wonder.
  • First, students will identify what they see in the image. Emphasize that they should make objective observations about the image (i.e. physical features, colors, textures, etc.).
  • Next, ask students to identify what they think about the image. Emphasize that students should be creating inferences using visual evidence from the image.
  • Finally, ask students what they wonder about the image.
• Facilitate a class-wide discussion around students’ observations, inferences, and questions.
• Explain to students this artwork is an example of a portrait. Portraits are visual depictions of people–often posed. When an artist makes a portrait of themself, it is called a self-portrait.
• Explain that before the Renaissance, artists didn’t depict people realistically. Renaissance artists used measurement and proportion in painting portraits to make them look realistic.

Work Session

• Tell students that they will be making their own self-portraits, focusing on the use of proportion and spatial relationships, like the Renaissance masters.
• Pass out pencils and mixed media paper.
• Have students lightly draw a large oval or egg shape onto their paper.
• Tell students that the eyes are located about halfway down the face. Have them draw a light horizontal line about halfway down the oval.
• Next, have students begin drawing the eyes with a circle and two bird-beaks attached to make an eye shape. Then draw in eyebrows with curved lines.
• Have the students use their fingers to measure the width of one eye. This is the distance from the eyes to the bottom of the nose.
• Tell students that the center of the nose is a “U” shape surrounded by two nostrils on either side. You can describe these shapes as a forward and backward “C” shape.
• Next, tell students to draw two very light vertical lines from the center of each eye all the way down to the bottom of their face. These lines represent how wide their mouths should be. Have students draw in their mouths.
• Use your “measuring fingers” once again to demonstrate that the ears are located between the top of the eyebrows and bottom of the nose.
• Have students lightly sketch in their hair, neck and shoulders last.
• Have students go over the lines of their face with permanent black markers, crayons, or oil pastels.
• Tell students to set their portraits aside. They will come back to them later.
• Lead a discussion around what characteristics are. Differentiate between physical characteristics, like hair or eye color, and personality characteristics.
  • Ask students to share examples of personality characteristics. This can be done as a whole group, or have students work in small groups to create lists and share them with the class.
  • Next, ask students what type of words these are. Are they nouns? Verbs? Adjectives? Students should make the connection that characteristics of a person are words to describe them and therefore are adjectives.
  • Next, have students generate a list of adjectives to describe their personality. Remind them that personality characteristics are things that cannot be seen on the outside. Encourage students to generate a list of five to seven adjectives to describe themselves.
    • Project the sentence starter “I am _________.” on the board. Tell students that they should be able to insert their adjective into the sentence starter without adding any additional words. If they have to add “a” or “the”, the part of speech is a noun and not an adjective.
  • Provide time for students to share their adjectives with the class, in small groups, or with a partner. Check to make sure that students’ words are written as adjectives and not nouns before moving on.
• Tell students that they will write their adjectives in the negative space of their self-portrait. The negative space is the “empty space”, or space around the subject of the artwork. Encourage them to write big and fill the space.
  • Students should write their adjectives with the same material (permanent black marker, crayon, or oil pastel) that they used to go over the lines of their self portrait.
• Finally, students will add color and detail to their self portraits using watercolor. The crayon or oil pastel will “resist” the watercolor. If using a permanent black marker, the marker won’t smear when the watercolor is applied.
• Students should finish their masterpieces by writing an informative paragraph about themselves using all of the adjectives in their self-portraits. Students’ writing should meet grade-level standards criteria.

Optional technology extension: Demonstrate how to use Kidsdoodle or another drawing app on iPad. Lead a discussion of the pros and cons of using a drawing app versus hand drawing methods and the differences in proportion  Using the camera on the iPad, take individual portrait photos of each student and print it. Have students compare photos to original sketches and app-generated drawings. How does each differ from the other?

Closing Reflection

• Have students celebrate their self-portraits by conducting a gallery walk, in which students walk around the room and take a closer look at all the artwork.
• Facilitate a discussion around how we see ourselves and appreciating what each person brings to the class community.

Assessments

Formative

Teachers will assess students’ understanding of the content throughout the lesson by observing students’ participation and contributions to the activator, ability to use informal measurement methods to create their self-portraits, discussion of personality characteristics and adjectives, and conferencing with students during the writing process.

Summative

CHECKLIST

• Students can create a self-portrait that correctly estimates the placement of facial features using informal measurement methods.
• Students can describe their personality characteristics using adjectives.

DIFFERENTIATION 

 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Ideas contributed by: Darby Jones and Katy Betts.

Revised and copyright:  July 2024 @ ArtsNOW

Georgia Standards

South Carolina Standards

Key Vocabulary

Materials

• Magazines (student-friendly with primarily non-human images)
• Scissors (1 pair per student)
• Colored paper (for collage background on which to glue final composition)
• Scrap/photocopy paper (2 per student)
• Glue sticks (1 per student)
• Pencils (1 per student)
• Large black banner paper and tape for hanging

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

• Project an image of a self-portrait, such as Frida Kahlo’s “The Frame”.
• Ask students to work collaboratively to engage in the See, Think, Wonder Artful Thinking Routine.
  • First, students will identify what they see in the image. Emphasize that they should make objective observations about the image (i.e. physical features, colors, textures, etc.).
  • Next, ask students to identify what they think about the image. Emphasize that students should be creating inferences using visual evidence from the image.
  • Finally, ask students what they wonder about the image.
• Facilitate a class-wide discussion around students’ observations, inferences, and questions.
• Explain to students that Frida Kahlo was a real person and this is one of her self-portraits. A self-portrait is a visual representation of oneself. It gives the viewer special insight into how a person sees themselves.

Work Session

• Explain that students will create their own self-portrait using symbolism. They will use symbols to represent characteristics about themselves.
• Facilitate a discussion around examples of symbolism.
  • Draw or project symbols on the board such as a peace sign, a heart, a smiley face, a stop sign, etc. Ask students to tell you what each means. Then, explain that a symbol is an image that communicates meaning.
• Next, discuss what characteristics are. Differentiate between physical characteristics like hair or eye color and personality characteristics. Ask students to share examples of personality characteristics.
  • Each student will use symbolism by choosing objects and/or images that represent his/her likes, interests, talents, dreams, work and passions, but not pictures of actual body parts.
  • Ask students to generate a list of 5-7 characteristics they would like to include in their self-portrait. They will write them on scratch paper.
  • Have students brainstorm with a partner what types of images could represent these characteristics.
• Explain that students will cut out images from magazines and glue them down on the shape of a body to make their self-portrait.
• Pass out templates of a human body (outline only) or project an image on the board for students to draw on their own blank paper (preferably 12x18).
• Tell students that once they find and cut out their images, they should plan their composition by laying them out on their outline of the body. This will allow students to move pieces around and change them before they glue, preventing tearing of images.
• To glue the images, lay them face down on a piece of scrap paper. Use a glue stick around the edges and back surface until the entire area is covered with a thin, even layer of glue. Take the glued image and lay it down onto their paper, glued side facing down.
• Have students carefully place a piece of clean scrap paper on top and smooth over the glued piece by rubbing with their hand to secure it in place. This is called burnishing and will give the collage a professional look.
• On a separate sheet of paper, have each student write an informative paragraph describing their self-portrait. Paragraphs should have introduction and conclusion sentences. The body of the paragraph should identify each symbol they used and explain what the symbol represents.

Closing Reflection

• Display all collages on a piece of black banner paper without students knowing who created each collage.
• Have students guess the creator of each collage and explain their reasoning.
• Compare and contrast guesses with actual facts. This closing conversation can lead to discussions of perceptions, assumptions, similarities, and differences.

Assessments

Formative

Teachers will assess students’ understanding of the content throughout the lesson by observing students’ participation in the activator, discussion of symbolism and characteristics, ability to identify personal characteristics and translate them into symbols, and conferencing with students during the writing process.

Summative

CHECKLIST

• Students can identify and select symbols to represent characteristics about themselves.
• Students can create a self-portrait using symbols.
• Students can write an informative paragraph that identifies and explains the meaning of the symbols they used in their self portraits.

DIFFERENTIATION 

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Ideas contributed by: Anne Ostholthoff. Modifications, Extensions, and Adaptations Contributed by: Peggy Barnes, Candy Bennett, Lindsey Elrod, Jennifer Plummer, and Vilma Thomas. Updated by: Katy Betts. 

Revised and copyright: July 2024 @ ArtsNOW