Categories
- Curriculum: Art, Art Criticism, Language Arts
- Age/Grade: Above 14, Elementary 3, Middle School
- Subject: Analysis and Theory, Drawing, Writing
- Materials: Pencils
- Institution: St Mary and St Thomas Aquinas Primary School
- Location: Tyne and Wear, England
- Duration: 3 Classes
Description
A wonderful lesson sent in by a school in England that helps students examine and discuss art while developing their own fun and silly essays.
Objective
To have students look at and analyze Haring's work.
To allow students to write creatively.
To give students an opportunity to merge language with art.
Resources
Keith Haring Posters
As we are very tied in the uk to covering particular curriculum everything is planned to be as cross curricular as possible. Therefore Keith Haring was part of my 1) ICT lessons, 2) Literacy lessons, 3) History lessons, 4) Art.
Materials
Pencils
Felt tip pens
White paper & colored construction paper
Scissors
Glue
Reproductions of work or computers to view work
Procedure
ICT Objectives: To enter and explore a web site using internet explorer.
Materials: Kieth Haring questions, pencils, pcs with internet access!
Procedure: My class visited a school with an internet suite so that all the pupils could use a pc at the same time. On interactive whiteboard demonstrated to class how to open browser and use search engines. As class searched for 'Kieth Haring' and from tags decided what would be appropriate. Looked at haringkids.com. Demonstrated how to navigate within site - use of scroll bars and links. Introduced work sheet and set to work!!
Extensions: Children with access at home were able to bring in work they had found about Haring later. Any children who finished the information search were able to be creative on the interactive colouring book.
Literacy Objectives: To write a story to explain how a Kieth Haring picture came to be.
Materials: Worksheets from ICT, Large copies of 'who', 'what' 'where' pictures, pencils, paper.
Procedure: Looked at pictures children had chosen when looking at web site and discussed their explanations. Revised general features of story writing. Children wrote own stories that had to explain the picture - it could be from the beginning , middle or end of the story. When work complete and teacher marked children worked in small groups to redraft and edit stories following teacher suggestions (always suggestions only as it is the children's work and they should have the ultimate decision on what's best!')
Extensions: Able to think of different episodes characters were involved in. How are the three pictures linked - a story that involves all three!
History Objectives: To see how life has changed since world war 2 - focus on art styles
Materials: Art from different decades (50s- abstract expressionism, 60s pop art, 70s op art, 80s Haring)
Procedure: Compare and contrast styles - how do they fit in with attitudes of time.
Extensions: Children found out about artists and styles other than the ones we had studied. (Out of interest they found it difficult to grasp that an artist who worked in the 80s had died while those from earlier decades were living - opened up big PSHE discussion)
Art Objectives: To recognise characteristics of Kieth Haring and to produce a picture using the same.
Materials: Bold felt tip pens, brightly coloured paper, white paper as base, scissors, glue
Procedure: Looked at web site worksheets at the words used to describe Haring's work. Things like fun, cartoon, childish etc were common. Isolated all the words that referred to look of picture. Decided on: bright colours, simple shapes, bold outlines, movement lines. Discussed the work Kieth did advertising good causes and raising people's awarenes about issues. Decided that the two issues we would want to advertise / raise awarenes about were reading books and the danger of our building site. In design books children in pencil drew simple poster advertising their point. After discussing in pairs - changing and adding to (usually making it simpler) children were given access to scissors, coloured paper and glue. After sticking on their main shapes they used broad felt tip pens to add bold outlines, movement lines and any wording. When the pictures were complete children shared work with class who evaluated them with respect to the characteristics we had identified.
Extensions: Several children bought in pictures they did at home after this lesson. Sadly we did not have time for more classwork although we do have a fantastic exhibition of art styles in the class - we went on to do an assemblage installations for the 1990's.