Learning Activity

Harlem Renaissance Inspired Art

Subject Area

Arts Education

Grade(s)

6

Overview

Students will use inspiration from Jacob Lawrence and Aaron Douglas to create their own Harlem Renaissance-inspired artwork. 

Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 6 - Visual Arts

AE17.VA.6.2

Formulate an artistic investigation and discovery of relevant content for creating art.

Unpacked Content

UP:AE17.VA.6.2

Vocabulary

  • Artistic ideas and work
  • Formal and conceptual vocabulary
  • Innovation
  • Investigation
  • Two-dimensional
  • Three-dimensional
  • Experimentation
  • Conservation
  • Craftsmanship
  • Linear perspective
  • Environmental responsibility
  • Prior knowledge
  • Museum
  • Gallery
  • Curator
  • Digital
  • Horizon Line
  • Brainstorming
  • Research

Essential Questions

EU: Artists and designers shape artistic investigations, following or breaking with traditions in pursuit of creative artmaking goals.
EQ: How does knowing the contexts, histories, and traditions of art forms help create works of art and design? Why do artists follow or break from established traditions? How do artists determine what resources and criteria are needed to formulate artistic investigations?

Skills Examples

  • Make, share and revise a list of ideas and preliminary sketches.
  • Use introductory skills, techniques, and elements of art to create a composition
  • Demonstrate drawing techniques, such as hatching, cross-hatching, shading, and stippling.
  • Create a group project about a current or world event.
  • Examine careers and identify and role - play various jobs of artists.
  • Research a subject or idea that has personal meaning to create a work of art.
  • Use the elements of visual arts to create an artwork that depicts emotions.
  • Use a variety of media and techniques in two and three dimensions to create imagery from experience, observation and imagination.
  • Demonstrate proper clean-up and/or disposal of equipment and materials.
  • Demonstrate art room safety and procedures.
  • Design an environmentally area for the school such as a library or other multi-use learning area.
  • Engage for the purpose of personal reflection and ongoing revision, in group critiques.
  • Reflect through journal writing artist intent.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Social Studies (2010) Grade(s): 6

SS10.6.4

Identify cultural and economic developments in the United States from 1900 through the 1930s.

Unpacked Content

UP:SS10.6.4

Vocabulary

  • Harlem Renaissance
  • Jazz Age
  • suffragettes
  • suffragists
  • flappers
  • personal credit
  • stock market crash
  • Immigration Act of 1924

Knowledge

Students know:
  • The cultural and economic developments of the early 1900s.

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Characterize the impact of notable people and events that shape our world.
  • Compare multiple points of view to explain economic policies.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • Major cultural and economic changes took place in the US during the early 1900's.

Phase

After/Explain/Elaborate
Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives

  • Students will make connections to the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance using artwork from the time period. 
  • Students will create their own artwork about the Harlem Renaissance using inspiration from one of the artists they studied. 

Activity Details

1. This activity should follow the Jacob Lawrence Migration Series See, Think, Wonder Learning Activity (Before/Engage) and the Harlem Renaissance Art - Compare and Contrast Learning Activity (During/Explore/Explain)

2. The students will use their investigations of Jacob Lawrence and Aaron Douglas along with their prior knowledge to create a composition that depicts emotions related to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. 

3. Have the students write a brief artist's statement to describe their work and how it relates to the topic.

Assessment Strategies

Assessment Strategies

Students will write an artist's statement to describe how their work relates to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. The artist's statements should include examples of how their artwork represents the Great Migration and/or the Harlem Renaissance and how their piece was inspired by one of the artists that they studied. Students statements should consider the theme, mood/message, medium, and historical context of their artwork. 

Students final compositions will be graded using a rubric. 

Visual Art Assessment Rubric

Background and Preparation

Background / Preparation

The teacher should be familiar with the Great Migration of the 1920s and the Harlem Renaissance.

The teacher should make sure students have access to a computer and test the internet connection before the lesson to make sure students will be able to complete research.

The teacher should make copies of the assessment rubric before the lesson. 

The teacher will also need to prepare paper and an assortment of art supplies for students to use for their compositions (markers, crayons, colored pencils, construction paper, paints, magazines etc.).  

Approved Date

Owner (Author)

asiahester1
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