Unit Overview
In our unit, we will be exploring this history through various artworks and artifacts and leaning into the question of how we moved from the picturesque confluence of where three distinct rivers meet to the modern city that now occupies the same space.
We will be delving into the ecology and environmental history of Pittsburgh through examination of these neighborhoods as well as the city as a whole. We will use artworks, maps, and photographic evidence from various periods in our city’s past, examining these chosen artifacts from these various periods to research where we started, where we have been, where we are now, and where we might be going in the future. Through the lenses of the artworks and other artifacts, my goal is to for my students, along with myself, to take a deeper look at how those various influences of capitalism, industry, topography, and geography have shaped our neighborhoods along with how these factors influenced the connection and separation of those neighborhoods.
Educators are always looking for ways to maximize their student potential as well as teaching their content in a meaningful and interesting way. I have almost always seemed to have a great deal of success when I am able to find ways for students to connect themselves to their surroundings and give students the power and ability to uniquely tell their own stories and to show me (and the world) their connections to their neighborhoods, communities, the larger city, and the world outside. What better way to connect students to their past than to encourage research and creation using their home as inspiration?
Our school population mostly represents the East End of Pittsburgh but we have students that represent almost every neighborhood in the city. Although, in the past, I have implemented projects that touch on student connection to their neighborhoods, we have never delved quite this deeply into the creation and connection of the neighborhoods in our city. I am most excited to be able to go through this process right beside my students and be able to look more deeply into the creation and history of my own neighborhood which became a borough in 1904 and was voted in a part of the city in 1926.2 I will use my own neighborhood as an example for our first activity.
The unit will culminate with students depicting their own street and/or neighborhood in a project inspired by Romare Bearden’s pieces ‘The Block’ and ‘Pittsburgh Memories’. Students will use the research from their sketchbooks to create their collage representation. They will be given the choice of whether to depict the present, past, or future as long as their final piece is based on the research that we compiled through the first two activities in the unit.
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