Week 4 - Expressionism and The Black Plague

Expressionist Theory

• All about expressing your emotions and thoughts in your art work
• Color often used to display feelings.

Example Lesson Plan:

Teacher: Amanda Morgan and Ellen Funch
Title: The Expressivist Theory and The Bubonic Plague
Grade Level: 2/3/7
Time Needed: 45 minutes
Exploration: Explore Expressionism and teach history, physical education, and visual art standards.
Objective: Help students understand Expressionism and relate their understanding to the artwork of the time of the Black Plague. Students should be able to express certain emotions through their artwork and explain why they used certain colors/designs.
State Standard:
California:
Grade 1 (Visual Art) : 3.1 Name and perform folk/traditional dances from other countries. 3.2 Describe aspects of the style, costumes, and music of a dance.
Grade 2 (Physical Education): 1.18 Perform rhythmic sequences related to simple folk dance or ribbon routines.
1.19 Perform with a partner rhythmic sequences related to simple folk dance or ribbon routines.
Grade 7 (History): 7.6 Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the civilizations of Medieval Europe. And sub category 7: the spread of the bubonic plague from Central Asia to China, the Middle East, and Europe and describe its impact on global population.
http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/index.asp

National Standard: Grade 3: “Students will:
• Develop an awareness of the role of art and visual culture within our society
• Comprehend that art may be for religious, celebration, ritual purposes
• Comprehend that artists can be influenced by historical events
• Comprehend that artworks can be created to commemorate events
• Become aware of one’s own cultural-specific conventions, symbols, and styles in art-works.
Question of Inquiry:
Concepts/Vocabulary: Expressionism, mentioned artists, The Black Death, The Bubonic Plague, etc.
Artists Discussed: Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock, Shirin Neshat, Jeff Koons
Other Subject Connections: Expressionism Movement, The Black Plague, “Ring Around the Rosy”, history standards, physical education standards, and visual art standards
Teacher Visuals/Supplies: power point, examples of Expressionist art and art from the time of the Black Plague, paper and finger paint
Preparation: Five Hours (research only), 10 hours
Student Materials: Paper, paint, note cards (for assessment)

Lesson Sequence:
• Readiness- discuss specific emotion and thoughts about it (brainstorming for art activity).
• Start Powerpoint- Expressivist/expressionism, how it came about, show artists and their works.
• Introduce lesson focus- Black Plague (explain history, cause, social/religious/emotional affects on society and artwork that expresses those ideas).
• Ring Around the Rosy activity & explain.
• Art project and clean up.

Introduction: (motivations, history, examples, check for current understandings) Introduce brainstorming-ask students to see in their head what colors and shapes look like love or hate.
Demonstration: (teacher, students, guests, sharing) Teach about Expressionism and the Black Plague
Work Time: (guided practice, play,planning, independent and collaborative work) 15-20 minutes
Clean Up and Management: (organizationand maintenance) 2-5 minutes
Closure: (what did you/we learn, discover, question, etc? any homework or connections to past or future lessons?) What did you learn?
Assessment: (formal or informal? criteria? self, peer, teacher, etc?) Feeling/emotion @ beginning; list one past/contemporary artist/work that you liked and explain why it is significant to you.
Reflection: (adaptations, openings, adjustments,possibilities, etc.)
Resources and References: Wikipedia, Google, any online search engine
Art for Elementary Teachers M

1. intro expressionism and explain definition and give famous past works of art and contemporary expressionist artists and their works.
2. start talking about the black plague and give full lesson on that.
3. ask now knowing what they know about expressionism and the black plague, explain why this work of art is significant in this setting. (this can be our assessment [formal or informal] or can just be discussion.)

POWERPOINT

My Thoughts
I really like how this lesson tied in the history bit by explaining that you can find peoples emotions and feelings in art work done throughout history. That was really neat. If I were to change this lesson I would have students look at different pictures/paintings and have them either write down or discuss the emotions those pictures/paintings made them feel. I would do this while explaining the expressionist theory to help them understand it better. Another thing I would do is to have students listen to music while they are doing their finger paintings. I would have 3-5 different songs and have the children paint what their different emotions during those songs.
I found this site online: It's a group that puts on shows where they play different kinds of music while a person paints for them. It is pretty cool. I think it would be fun to show the students one of their video clips and have a discussion about why some artists like to listen to music while they create and what affects it may have on their emotions.

My prototype: