Histories of Art, Race and Empire: 1492-1865

Appendix on Implementing District Standards

Visual Arts Standards

AIII.3 The student will analyze, interpret, and evaluate artwork.

1. Evaluate the effectiveness of the communication of artistic vision/voice in personal works of art.   
2. Analyze art exhibitions in written reflections.

This Virginia standard will be addressed in class discussions, graphic organizers to help students organized their analyses and interpretations and writing reflections on how the details in the work help communicate the artists’ messages.

AI.6 The student will understand historical and cultural influences of art.

1. Explore works from diverse artists (including diversity of ability, ethnicity, race, and gender).
2. Explore works of historical and contemporary art movements.
3. Analyze art in relation to events, places, cultures, and historical periods.
4. Evaluate how social, cultural, and historical context influence meaning in works of art and design.

The students will study the historical context of global abolition movements in England and the Caribbean as a backdrop for studying the art depicting trans-Atlantic slavery in the 17^th-19^th centuries.  Students will compare the depictions of racial hierarchies in art from that period to depictions in Richmond form the 20^th and 21^st centuries.  Included in this unit will be presentations of and discussions artwork from a diversity of artists.

English/ Language Arts

12.5 The student will read, interpret, analyze, and evaluate a variety of nonfiction texts.

1. Use critical thinking to generate and respond logically to literal, inferential, and evaluative questions about the text(s).

The students will be required to engage in higher order thinking skills as they read and demonstrate these skills periodically throughout the book in the form of answering comprehension questions and by participating in discussions about the text.

12.6 The student will write in a variety of forms to include persuasive/argumentative reflective, interpretive, and analytic, with an emphasis on persuasion/argumentation.

1. Produce arguments in writing that develop a thesis to demonstrate knowledgeable judgments, address counterclaims, and provide effective conclusions.
2. Blend multiple forms of writing, including embedding a narrative to produce effective essays.

The students will write a synthesis, a narrative and, a final argumentative essay. These essays will require the students use the standards listed above.  By employing various types of essays at different stages of the book the students will apply differing skills that address differing reading and writing standards. Students will be guided on how to write an effective thesis statement and how to support that thesis with evidence from the text and the works of art we study.  They will be required to include a counterargument in their argumentative essay they write at the end of the unit.  

Classroom materials Prince, Mary. The history of Mary Prince: A west Indian slave. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018.

Projector/Whiteboard

Notebook for writing

This graphic organizer worksheet

Sample Graphic Organizer- created by JD DeReu for this unit