Classroom Activities
This unit is currently planned for the fall of 2024. It could technically be any time of the year but I chose the fall because autumn in Pittsburgh seems to be a great combination of hospitable weather in case our learning takes us outdoors. It also is a great time to take students outside because of the spectacularly colorful changes in our natural environment.
The planned time frame is 10 to 14 classes over a six to eight-week span. The unit should take up the better part of our first nine week grading period and will focus mainly on my fifth graders.
Phase One: Introduction to Pittsburgh History a Discussion
Although the bulk of our discussions will be the industrial age that started with George Washington’s quest for the ideal military installation, we will start out by going the whole way back to the time before the United States officially became a nation. Our school has a high emphasis for arts integration within the other core subjects, but it is a personal goal of mine to integrate other subjects into my lessons and projects as much as possible as well. We will take this time to briefly discuss the geological history of the area and how glacier activity formed the broad plains that line our rivers making it possible for Pittsburgh to be utilized, not only for future military implications, but also for the farmlands which then led way to a suitable bed for the railways which connected Pittsburgh to the broader world in the post-Civil War era which transformed those farms into businesses and factories well into the Twentieth Century.31
But to digress, in 1753, a young George Washington looked at this level land where three rivers met and realized that he had discovered an ideal spot for a British fort to combat France’s hold on the territory.32 With the start of Pittsburgh’s recorded military history, we will move into the core of our discussion. I will guide the discussions through the history and the environmental impacts of industrialization, but I would like them to still stay mostly student focused.
I plan on the historical and geological introduction to this unit only taking one to two classes. Each day will still include a drawing warmup along with the discussions. We will plan on discussing our big ideas surrounding the development and evolutions of the area with this and throughout the other steps of the unit.
One probable warmup for these one or two classes would be to take the time to do a quick sketch in our sketchbook journal of what the landscape or topography might have looked like prior to the western colonization of the area. What did the area look like before and right after Europeans first occupied the area?
Phase Two: Planning
As stated in my strategies, the goal is to have students be keeping a sketchbook style journal throughout the entire process of the unit. This not only builds transferable habits and routines, but it provides a concrete way to look back on our process. Students will be using the sketches and notes as the research and inspiration for their final project along with taking inspiration from their own home, its history, etc…
I will be using my own neighborhood and my research regarding it as my prime example for this part of the unit. We will go through the steps that I took looking at how my neighborhood, Carrick, evolved.
We will take at least one but probably two class periods to research our homes, their corresponding neighborhoods, and how our streets and areas fit into the history and future of our city.
For projects like these, I always have a planning sheet and checklist to help students track their progress and give them a framework to work within.
Phase Three: Creation and Reflection
If students took visual and written notes during the introduction process and during the planning process, they should already have a well-documented account to look back upon and should have adequate planning and ideas to influence their final project. As visual artists we can use our sketches and notes in much the same way that a scientist would use their well-documented research, or a musician can listen back through recordings of their past performances, or even how an author or poet would look back on their notes and writing sketches. As always, certain accommodations will be made for students who missed classes along with any individual learning plans that students may have.
For the final project, we will be looking at the work of Romare Bearden for inspiration for our cityscape collages. Specifically, we will be using our viewing of Bearden’s ‘The Block’, ‘Pittsburgh Memories’, along with teacher created examples. A sketch on larger paper will serve as the template for the collages. Students can then use this as a template to directly create over or they can use this as a sketch to inform their final product. Through the process, we will continue to talk about the different ways to represent the past, present, and future in our pieces. For this particular project, I am not concerned with realism but I will be encouraging accurate representation of ideas. We have discussed, in earlier grades, the use of metaphor and symbolism, and those will play a big part in the final creations. As supplemental reminders of these concepts, we will be watching the video Trains, snakes, and guitars: The collages of Romare Bearden from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.33 In the video, Bearden discusses how he uses the images of trains, snakes, and guitars as symbols and running themes in his work. This will lead our discussion into how artists use certain symbols in their work and how we can use our own symbols to convey meaning and connection in our artworks.
Our conversation on symbols will then be followed by the rough draft of the project on larger paper and then followed immediately by the project itself. Unlike other projects, and as previously stated, I will give students permission to collage right over their rough draft, using it as the template for their final project.
This is where we will be incorporating the ideas of the past, present, and the future of our city. How can we represent these things in our works? What symbols from our own lives should we include? What symbols would we really like to include? There are no right or wrong answers to this question as every student will have a different experience and different way of interpreting the assignment. However, even though we all might have a different vision, students will still be asked to stay within a framework. This framework will be laid out in the planning sheet and the checklist. Along with the rubric, these will act as the basis for grading the assignments.
Phase Four: Collaborative Project if time
If time permits, we will be taking a field trip to the garden and around the school building to find usable and safe garbage and other remnants of past city life. I foresee us mostly finding new garbage such as bottle caps and metal and plastic trash. I will also be collecting these objects on my own as well to supplement what we find in our surroundings. The amount and variety of objects that we are able to find will dictate how large and how detailed the project may be. Understanding that what we find will, in fact, directly impact what we are able to create.
These found objects will be combined to create an assemblage collaborative cityscape large enough to be displayed in one of the main hallways of the school. My vision is for the caps and other small objects to create an almost pointillist representation. Since I have previously discussed the assemblage of Louise Nevelson with them, this project will act as a way to connect her work with found objects to another art movement.
This extension activity will also be a way for me to include students from other grade levels into a unit that I plan on using with fifth graders again in the future but without repeating a project.
Suggested Warm Up Activities:
Because I have previously discussed Louise Nevelson and other assemblage artists, I keep a collection of what I call ‘trash for sculpture’. I will sometimes use this useful trash to discuss the design principles and concepts of unity, harmony, balance, emphasis, proportion, and contrast. Giving each table of students a pile to separate and label as they see fit and as a group. What do the objects have in common? What would separate them? What elements of art and principles of design can we use to categorize the objects placed in front of you?
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