Classroom Activities
Lesson One- Introduction to Shakespearean Characters
I plan on having the students "stage" themselves as a character in one of Shakespeare's plays. I will introduce my unit by introducing the three plays at which we will looking: Othello, Macbeth, and The Taming of the Shrew. The students will be, concurrently, exploring Romeo and Juliet in depth in their English class. I do not expect the students to be familiar with these plays or the characters. To introduce the plays, I will put several copies of "60 Second Shakespeare Newspapers" on each table. These "newspapers" are one page long and formatted in a tabloid style. Each gives a short, engaging summary of the plot and major characters of each play. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/shakespeare/60secondshakespeare/themes_index.shtml)
From this information, I will ask the students to select a play or character that interests them. When they commit to their character, I will give them the No Fear Shakespeare version of their selected play. This version has the original text on the left side of the page and a modern language version on the right side. I have selected these versions because I want to enable students who are interested and motivated to be able to delve into the original language but I also want to make the plays accessible to all of the students, even those who would struggle with the language. My assumption is that most of them will have little or no experience with the language of Shakespeare and while the English teacher will be teaching, in depth, the language, that will probably be occurring a little later in the time frame of this unit, and therefore will not be of help to my students at this time.
I will provide three graphic organizers that the students will complete as they read their chosen play. The graphic organizers will include one page of descriptive adjectives, another page where the students will look for physical description, inferred physical description, background information on the character, the personality of the character and their personal response to the character, and a final graphic organizer that will have the students "read closely". They will need to cite lines from the play that show evidence of what the character does and says, and what others say about the character. Since they will be concurrently reading Romeo and Juliet, I will use Juliet as my example of how to complete the organizers. As a group we will complete (as much as the time in class allows) the last worksheet. I will then allow the students to work on this assignment over the following week (approximately two to three class periods-we are on block scheduling, where we see each class for 90 minutes every other day). At the end of each class period during this time, I will use the last 30 minutes for the students to break into small groups, determined by the play on which they are working. During this time they may work independently, cooperatively, with their classmates, or they can ask my assistance.
Lesson Two - Portraiture
Running concurrently to the class period where the students will be working on their character analysis, I will be using the first 60 minutes of the class to focus on the history of portraiture and Tudor portraits. Using a PowerPoint of images, I will outline the history of portraiture up to the Renaissance. In their sketchbooks, I will have them create a time line of the basic art historical periods that I will discuss: ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, Roman, Middle Ages and the Renaissance. They will need to provide dates for each period and draw a portrait that will signify the type of portrait that would have been done during that particular period. They will also include the pertinent information.
On the next day, I will present a PowerPoint that focuses on Tudor portraits. I will show this to them twice. The first time I will have them look for similarities among the portraits, hoping that they will be able to identify the characteristics of a Tudor portrait. We will then have a discussion where I elicit from them what they discerned from seeing many of the images. I will write these commonalties on the board, making sure that individual likeness, elaborate costumes and jewelry, items in the hand(s), flat backgrounds, inscriptions, and coats of arms are noted. We will then discuss what these items would mean in Tudor England and what we can infer about both the Tudor culture and the individual sitters for the portraits. If time allows this day, I will show the PowerPoint a second time (if not, this will be done during the following class period). During this viewing of the PowerPoint, we will focus on symbolism. When the students were in 6th grade, they did a unit on symbolism; so while I will remind them of what symbolism and symbols are, I expect them to have a clear understanding of the concept. For each image, I will point out the symbol (or the item that could have symbolic meaning) and ask them to infer—based on their new knowledge of Tudor England—or even guess what it might mean. We will proceed through the images this way, adding to their visual vocabulary. At the end of the class, I will give them the handout of symbols, which they will glue into their sketchbook for future reference. Their homework will be to look at the list and decide on five symbols that could relate to some aspect of their Shakespearean character. They will name the five symbols, and with a few sentences on each, explain the connect, as they perceive it, to the character. This will be their first step in contemplating their character visually.
In the following class period, we will divide into pairs and go to my computer lab (part of the art room). I have twelve computers and never more than twenty-five students in a class. The students will go to the website page of Showtime's The Tudors (http://www.sho.com/site/tudors/characters.do) that has the link to "the Restoration Project". This interactive website has ten of the major characters from the show as "painted" portraits. The viewer needs to select from five possible objects to place into the portrait (thus "resorting" the portrait). Two will be considered "correct" and three "incorrect". When the website says it is correct, it gives an explanation of why that object is an appropriate symbol for that particular character. I will allow the students to do each of the portraits while taking notes on the explanations of the symbols. These notes will be taken in their sketchbook. I will also ask that they do a sketch of each symbol next to their explanation. I anticipate this taking most of the class period.
At the end of the class, I will present the challenge of the studio project: the student will need to "stage" a portrait of their Shakespearean character. They will need to think how the character will be dressed, what jewelry they will have, their pose, their facial expression and any objects that they will be holding in their hands. I will explain that they should portray their character like actors. I will show them some of the props that I have gathered and that have been donated by the parents (as per a letter sent out at the beginning of the year). I tell them that they are welcome to bring anything from home that they might want to use, (given parents' approval) and that they could even create their own costume. They will have two or three days to work on this while I begin teaching the technical studio skills that will be required to complete the portrait.
Lesson Three - Staging of the Self-Portrait
After the background information is given and their research is completed, I will have the students design a costume and stage a portrait of their chosen character. I will spend some time talking about how one stages a production, and how you need to select authentic costumes, props, hairstyles etc., to reflect the characters. These concepts should reinforce the previous day's instruction. I hope to have a costume designer, a set designer or even a director from the Theater Department at one of the local universities (University of Richmond or Virginia Commonwealth University) come in and talk about how one designs costumes or sets, or stages a production. I will request that the speaker address how these decisions reflect the personality and identity of the characters in the performance. We might even be able to take a field trip to the University of Richmond to see their Theater Department
I envision having the students dress themselves as the character, as this would be most engaging for them. I will have clothing items that they can use, e.g. cloaks, hats, etc., as well as jewelry and crowns. I will also have fabric that they can drape or pin to create a costume. I would imagine that some of the students would find items at home and some might even do some work on their costumes at home.
In addition to dressing themselves as the character, they will also need to decide on the objects that might be in the portrait. The students will need to think about what pose, expression and hand position would exemplify the character. I will also talk about symbols that can be used in portraits and let the students select objects to be used as symbols to further communicate the character. They will have their notes and handouts to help their thought processes. Armed with all of this information (information about their character, Tudor portraits, symbolism and staging of theatrical productions), they will be ready to figure out how they will "stage" their portrait.
Lesson Three - Studio
I will spend one to two classes teaching or reviewing the specific art skill that they will need to actually create their drawing of their portrait. I will review tints and shades and demonstrate the use of oil pastels and how to create tints and shades using oil pastels. I will also discuss composition, contour line and proportion.
During the next class period, the day that they were told would be our staging day, the students will bring all of their props to class. I will have set up in the corner a chair with a large light and a black drapery background. The students, having dressed themselves and selected their items, will then take turns arranging themselves as the focus of their envisioned portraits. I will take a photo of each one of them posed as the character. While waiting their turn, the other students will begin a rough draft of their justification of why they have made their visual decisions and how these decisions reflect directly back to the identity of their chosen Shakespearean character.
The next day (or perhaps two days, depending on how quickly all get photographed) I will give them their photograph. Using this image, they will create a large, 18"x24" oil pastel self-portrait drawing. During the drawing phase, I will focus on facial proportion rules, tints and shades, and creating a three dimensional illusion on a two dimensional surface, as well as composition. As the students finish, I will have them continue to work on their justification of the choices they have made regarding their self-portrait. I also plan on having them present their drawings to the other 8th grade students who are in the IB program but who do not take art. I think it would be interesting for the students to be able to explain their portraits to their peers and maybe, just maybe, spark an interest in their peers.
Lesson Four - Shakespearean Art
After the oil pastel portraits and the justification papers are finished, as a closure to the unit, we will look at Shakespearean art. I have developed PowerPoint presentations for each of the plays that they have been studying: Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Macbeth, and The Taming of the Shrew. I also have one that gives an overview of the history of Shakespearean art. After we have viewed the history PowerPoint, I will show each of the play's PowerPoints. Each one has several examples of Shakespearean art that depict scenes and characters from the play. During the PowerPoint, we will talk about how each image is or is not an accurate depiction of the play and/or character. At the end, I will give each group of students that did the same character a copy of a painting of that character or of a scene from the play. Using an art criticism worksheet as a guide, they will need to write an essay that deals with the four steps of art criticism: description, analysis, interpretation and judgment. Each statement will need to have evidence from the painting. I will make the connection to the worksheet that they did while reading the play, the one in which they found evidence of their character's identity within the play.
After looking at the Shakespearean art and writing the criticism essay, I will show the students some images by Cindy Sherman, a contemporary photographer who is known for her conceptual self-portraits. She does series, and one of her most famous series, the one we will be looking at, is the History Portraits. She cast herself in roles in famous paintings. We will have a brief discussion comparing and contrasting what she did in this series with what we did. I will then ask them to remember this artist because we will be coming back to her.
This unit fits within my first semester curriculum very well. This will be the first unit we do. After this unit, we do a unit on Dutch still life painting, where we deal with the development of different categories of art (i.e. portraits, history painting, still life, interiors, seascapes, genre painting, etc) and the hierarchy of these. We will emphasize the still life category and the use of symbolism in these vanitas paintings. The students create their own vanitas painting. After this, we return to portraiture, returning to Cindy Sherman and featuring the contemporary artist, Kehinde Wiley. He is an extremely talented artist who takes inner-city youth and has them select artwork from the traditional western European art canon. He then paints the young man, dressed in his street clothes, in the setting of the image from art history. I will have the students do a self-portrait, in charcoal, and have them create an abstracted background design from tapestries from the Renaissance period. I am very excited, not only about the unit itself, but how well it fits within my curriculum. I know my students will develop and strengthen their analytical thinking skills.
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