The Illustrated Page: Medieval Manuscripts to New Media

Activities

I am planning for my activities to be implemented over a course of approximately three weeks. In my first grade, partial Spanish immersion class, each activity will take between 40 and 45 minutes, with three weekly sessions. The activities have been designed to meet Virginia’s Standards of Learning (SOLs), as well as this unit’s objectives. Please note that the numbers that appear next to the activities are there to provide a tentative sequence, which may change if unexpected circumstances arise.

Activity 1 School cafeteria mural

My school cafeteria is beautifully decorated by a large mural that covers the walls. The images on this mural show children, landscapes and animals interacting in a cheerful and relaxed atmosphere. Next to the images, there are messages written in different languages expressing a common desire to live peacefully in this world. Since the mural is at our school and my students see it all the time, I decided to use it for my first activity. Teachers in other cities can easily find comparable murals images online. I have included a link to some of those murals in the list of additional resources.

Procedure

1. We will briefly review what we have previously learned during our daily language arts activities, about using images to gain understanding and make meaningful connections. I will divide my class in small groups, with 3 or 4 students per group. The groups will be dispersed along the cafeteria, so the children can observe different parts of the painting. I will ask the students to pay attention to the images as well as the written messages. (10 minutes)
2. After the initial observation, and while still at the cafeteria, we will sit together and talk about what each group observed, making emphasis on what each image on the mural seems to communicate. Using a large piece of chart paper and markers, I will help the children to write a list with ideas gained from observing the mural. (10 minutes)
3. The students will work in pairs, using clipboards, pencils and paper, copying at least two images which they think carry the message about living peacefully in this world. (10 minutes)
4. We will return to our classroom to share the sketches and to talk about what the mural means. We will use another large piece of chart paper to write a few sentences about the mural. (10 minutes)
5. We will talk about how, while the sentences on the mural are written in different languages, several of which we can’t understand, the images have a clear message that everyone can “read.”  We will share our impressions about the messages that we were able to interpret, and if these messages go along with the images (10 minutes)

Activity 2 – Visual Narrative/Read Aloud

Students in first grade continue to develop and apply their observation skills. They learn how to compare and/or contrast, and they apply this knowledge as they make progress in different subjects. Today we will learn about how different cultures have used images to communicate stories about important events.

Procedure

1. We will review what we did yesterday, when we went to the cafeteria to observe the mural. I will remind the children that even though we couldn’t read all the written messages on the mural, we didn’t have problems understanding the pictures. I will introduce the term, visual narrative. I will explain how people have been using images for thousands of years to communicate. I will show them a few samples of images that carry a message, for example, pictures of street signs. I will ask the children if they have ever seen other images that brought a message to their minds. (10 minutes)
2. I will read Artful Stories, by Jude Tolar. I chose this book because it describes how images can represent stories. The book includes information and colorful photos about famous pieces that go along with this unit, including cave and Egyptian paintings, the Bayeux Tapestry, Chinese handscrolls, and Mexican murals. I will pause during the reading to make comments, clarify doubts and to ask questions. (15 minutes)
3. After the reading, I will use my LCD projector to show the children photos of cave paintings found in different regions of the world. We will also look at photos of pictographs that were found in the Southern area in the United States. I will ask the children, “Why do you think these paintings were made?”, and “How are these images similar and different?” We will use a Venn diagram to write our observations. (15 minutes)

Activity 3 Pre-Hispanic Murals

Procedure

1.  I will introduce this activity by reminding my students that different societies, which may live far away from one another, might communicate very similar ideas by painting comparable images. I will explain that today we will look at images discovered at two different archeological sites, to find common characteristics. The murals we will look at are those discovered at Bonampak and Cacaxtla, both Mexican communities. For this part of the activity I will use a map of North America, and a large map of Mexico. To give my students an opportunity to apply their map skills during today’s session, we will use the first map to briefly review the cardinal directions and the location of Mexico in the continent. Using the second map, I will point to the exact locations where the world-famous Bonampak and Cacaxtla murals were discovered. I will give my students some basic information about the history and geography of those two communities, to enhance their understanding about the individuals who painted the murals. (15 minutes)

2.   I will use my LCD projector to show images of the murals found at the Bonampak archeological site, making pauses to answer questions and make comments. I will ask my students to carefully observe the images, because we will compare them with the ones from Cacaxtla. Teachers can access these images using the following links:

https://maya.nmai.si.edu/gallery/bonampak and

https://leonidemartinblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/bonampak-murals-1.jpg

I will then show images of the murals found at Cacaxtla. The following links can be used to see those images:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Cacaxtla01.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Murals_in_Cacaxtla#/media/File:Cacaxtla10.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Murals_in_Cacaxtla#/media/File:El_hombre-p%C3%A1jaro.JPG

Afterwards, we will sit on the carpet to share our observations about the murals. Using a large piece of chart paper, I will help the children to write a list with what we noticed were similar characteristics, for example, colors, clothing garments, etc. (20 minutes)

Activity 4 The Mexican Muralism Movement and Diego Rivera

Today I will introduce my students to the story of the Mexican Muralism Movement. I will also share with them some basic biographical information about Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. This activity will help the students to understand the social purposes that fueled that movement and the educational quality of the murals.

Procedure

1. I will show a short video about the Mexican Muralism Movement, making pauses to answer questions and make comments about the content. This video is narrated in Spanish, but teachers can choose to mute the narration and use the images. The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGFckyfHu7Q  (15 minutes)
2. After the video, we will sit on the carpet to exchange ideas about the reasons that originated the Mexican Muralism Movement. We will then fill a concept map diagram with some of those reasons. (15 minutes)
3. Using a document camera, I will show images from these two books,

“A Weekend with Diego Rivera”, by Barbara Braun, and “Diego Rivera”, by Mike Venezia. These books have many attractive illustrations and engaging text that will certainly engage my young students. I will use these books to enhance my students’ understanding of Rivera’s life. We will then fill a concept map with some of the facts about Rivera’s life that we learned today. (15 minutes)

Note:  I will follow a similar sequence to teach about the lives of Orozco and Siqueiros. Due to space limitations, I am not including those activities here.

Activity 5 – Historical Narrative in Mexican Murals

Procedure

1.  I will remind my students about how Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros painted murals to communicate messages that had a social content. I will explain that today we will see how one of Rivera’s murals contains a visual narrative that describes historical events.

We will watch a 14-minute video titled, The History of Mexico City. Documentary based on Diego Rivera Mural in National Palace. This video can be accessed at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-DKc4i5bIQ  I chose this video because the producers did a very good job interpreting images from the painting to describe important historic events that happened in Mexico’s history. In the video, the events are described chronologically, carefully matching the narrative with the corresponding images. (15 minutes)

2.  After watching the video, I will call my students to the rug for the next activity. We will use 6 – 8 sentence strips already labeled with words that refer to the historical events mentioned in the video, for example, “Mexican revolution”, “Teotihuacan”, and “Mexican independence.” I will also have color copies of some of the images shown on the video. These images can be reproduced from one of the books mentioned in the bibliography at the end of this unit. We will match the sentence strips with their corresponding image, placing them on a pocket chart, in chronological order. We will use the sentence strips and color copies to summarize the main events mentioned in the video. (10 minutes)

Note: I will repeat the same steps using Rivera’s famous mural, Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park. I will use this mural as inspiration for one of the items that my students will prepare during this unit.