Lesson One
Day one
Lesson one will introduce the concept of different perspectives. To do this, I will have an object (things like an iron, a basket, a statue of a bird, a camera, etc) on each table when the students arrive. The object will be sitting on a box so it will be approximately eye level with the students. I will ask them to do a quick drawing (3 minutes) of the object. Next, I will have them all sit on the floor so that the object it raised high above their heads. Again, they will do a quick drawing (3 minutes). Finally, I will have the children place the objects on the floor and have them move their chairs in a circle as close as possible to the object. Again, they will draw. When they are done, we will talk about what made the three drawings of the same object different. I expect the students to tell me that they are different because of their (the student's) point of view or perspective. They may not use these words but in our discussion, I will introduce the words and write them on the board.
I will then introduce the 4 main types of points of view that will be dealing with in this unit: worm's eye view, human's eye view, bird's eye view and satellite view. The students will write each of the four types of point of view and draw a simple illustration in their sketchbooks.
Using my computer lab, I will have the students pair up (I have 12 computers and no more than 25 students in a class) and instruct them on how to find the website, Google Earth. Using Google Earth, the students will find a satellite view of their house or their apartment building. From this satellite view of an environment that they are intimately familiar with, the students will ultimately create a bird's eye view of their neighborhood. I will have each student print out his or her house's view. The students will put their names on the images and I will save them for a future class period. They will then be allowed to explore this website in the time remaining in the class period. I will encourage them to use the sight seeing feature which zooms in on a famous sight (using a satellite view) and them changes to a bird's eye view and then back to a satellite view before flying off to another site. I feel that this experience will reinforce the difference between satellite and bird's eye view.
Day Two
We will begin the class by dividing into pairs and having the students sit back to back. One student will describe a place and the other student will draw it. The first time, the student who is drawing may not ask questions. After a 5-minute time period, the students can face each other and examine the map and talk about how successful it is or is not. Next, they will repeat the same activity, with each person being in the different role. This time, the drawer is able to ask questions to clarify. When they are done and have looked at the second map, they will then write what hard about drawing the map and what was hard about describing the place. Then to the whole group, I will ask "How could this be made more accurate?" and "Is this a good way to make a map?". As a bridge from this activity to the next, I will show Map of China by Hokusai (1840). HYPERLINK www.bl.uk/learning/artimages/maphist/deception/mapchinahokusai/hokusai.html
This map illustrates how very subjective things can affect a map. Since Hokusai never went to China, this map was created from descriptions, stories from travelers and Hokusai's own imagination. This will be a very direct experience on how maps might not be accurate as well as illustrating the dilemma on deciding whether certain images are maps or landscapes. We will explore this through the following questions: "Is Hokusai's image a map or is it a work of art?," "What clues do we see?," "How can we decide?" For homework, I will give each student a copy of the article, "Envy, Conquest, Revenge: It's All in the Maps" by Roberta Smith. They will also receive questions to answer as they read the article. Since, Hokusai's map is a mixture of what we might consider a satellite view and bird's eye view, it is a great way to introduce the next activity.
We will, then, explore early Chinese maps and American Victorian era panoramic maps. When looking at these, I will focus in on how there is this switching/tension/interrelatedness? between satellite viewpoints and bird's eye viewpoints in both types of maps. To keep the students engaged, I will make this activity more of a game with each table competing against the other tables to have the most "correct" answers. At the end, I will explain that there are no right answers. Any answer is acceptable if you can give valid reasons as to why you chose it. I will show them slides using the LCD projector and have them write which viewpoint is being shown. I will purposely put in images that clearly show one of the points of view and ones that have aspects of both points of view.
Day Three
This class period will be focused on illusions of depth. I will show the students the Behind the Scenes: Depth video that was created by PBS, starring Penn and Teller. While watching the video, the students will write all the "tricks"(techniques) that Penn and Teller show for creating an illusion of depth on a 2D surface. After the video, I will elicit from the students the 6 techniques: position, size, overlap, detail, atmospheric perspective (color) and linear perspective. For a long-term homework assignment (due one week from the day it is given), the students will create a sketchbook page for each of the 6 techniques. On each page, they will need to find an example of that technique (from magazine, the newspaper or the internet) and explain how that example illustrates the technique. They will also have to write a definition/ explanation of the technique and drawn their own example of it. They will use the remaining time in the period to work on the assignment. I will have a variety of magazines, including National Geographic and Smithsonian, for students to use and I will be available to answer any questions and to try to eliminate any potential problems.
Day Four and Five
I will return to the students their Google Earth images from the earlier class period. Using this image as a reference, I will ask them to draw a bird's eye view of their house/ apartment building and surrounding area. This activity will challenge them to think in terms of problem solving. They will be extremely familiar with the view of their house and its surrounding environment from a human's eye level. They will have in front of them, an image of it from a satellite view. Their job will be to imagine, based on the facts they know, what the bird's eye view would look like. I will allow them a few minutes to do some sketching in their sketchbooks. When it seems that they are beginning to develop solutions to the problem, I will pass out 12" x 18" black construction paper and oil pastels. They will be instructed to use a light color oil pastel to draw their composition and then to color it, leaving a little of the black paper showing around the lines. They will be asked to press hard to get good coverage with the oil pastels and to experiment with blending of colors. I would imagine that this project will take the rest of this class period and the following period. At the end of the following period, we will take the pictures into the hall to spread out and will do a mini-critique. Since this will be their first experience with critiquing, I will give rules as to how it will proceed and what can be said. Each person says one thing about someone else's work and it must be positive. They are to try to say something about a piece that has not been spoken about before their turn but they may if they really want. I will make sure that every piece gets spoken about, and the ones that aren't spoken about by the students, I will comment on. Unlike the other projects, this one will not be assessed based on a rubric. It will be the first art project that the students will have graded. In elementary school, art is not a graded subject while in middle school it is. The fact that they will have a graded art assignment is rather intimidating to them. Therefore, I tend to grade the first project on whether they complete it or not. After they become accustomed to my teaching, I find that this anxiety dissipates.
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