Teaching Strategies
This curriculum unit engages students in an inquiry-based exploration of resistance through visual arts. Over the course of five to seven weeks, high school visual art students investigate how artists have challenged dominant narratives, affirmed identity, documented lived experiences, and imagined inclusive futures as a standard. The unit begins with students collaboratively developing a working definition of resistance that is revisited and refined throughout the learning experience. Students examine historical and contemporary examples of resistance while recognizing that resistance can take many forms, including advocacy, celebration, cultural preservation, joy, identity affirmation, and community building.
Instruction is organized around four interrelated components that emphasize observation, critical thinking, writing, discussion, and creative expression.
Component 1: Examining the Work of Contemporary Artists
Students engage in sustained study of the works of six contemporary artists carefully curated to align with the thematic arcs noted in the DCPS Arts Framework for learning.
- Amy Sherald represents the arc identity as she paints ordinary Black subjects with monumental presence, resisting historical exclusion from Western portrait traditions (17).
- Titus Kaphar represents the arc of interaction by altering historical paintings to expose relationships of power and exclusion. Revealing who has been erased from history and why (18).
- Barbara Kruger represents the language arc with bold text that confronts power structures that attempt to define whose voices matter (19).
- Kehinde Wiley represents the arc of determination by reimagining monuments and European paintings by centering young Black men as the subjects, resisting exclusion from public memory (20).
- Nick Cave represents the creation arc by making wearable sculptures that conceal race, gender, and class while celebrating individuality (21).
- Bisa Butler represents the arc of transformation by changing archival photographs into vibrant quilts that restore individuality, humanity and beauty to overlooked historical figures (22).
Through guided discussions, visual analysis, and contextual research, students identify artistic choices that communicate ideas about resistance while considering the historical and cultural contexts that shape each artist’s work.
Component 2: Engaging in the DCPS Arts Five Encounters of Close Study Protocol
Fig. 1. Five Encounters of the Close Study Protocol
Students participate in a close looking protocol to deepen their understanding of selected artworks and place them into conversation with the unit’s essential theme of resistance. Across multiple encounters, students engage in sustained observation, evidence-based discussion, contextual investigation, interpretation, and synthesis. These repeated interactions encourage students to revisit works with increasing sophistication, supporting deeper analysis of artistic intent, symbolism, perspective, and audience.
Students compare and connect artworks across artists, identifying common themes and diverse approaches to resistance while developing the habits of inquiry outlined in the DCPS Arts Framework for Learning.
Component 3: Using the RACCER Strategy to Write Across Content
Fig. 2. RACCER In Art: Graphic Organizer: Students can use this graphic organizer when responding to writing prompts.
Writing is embedded throughout the unit to strengthen students’ analytical thinking and communication skills. Students respond to prompts aligned with the DCPS Arts Framework for Learning as it relates to visual literacy and resistance using the RACCER writing strategy:
Restate or paraphrase the question/prompt/hypothesis
Answer the question by providing a clear and direct claim.
Context: Explain the relevant background information
Cite and/or paraphrase specific evidence to support your answer.
Explain and elaborate how the selected evidence supports your claims
Recap by concluding and effectively summarizing your major points.
Writing opportunities include artwork analysis, artistic comparison, reflections, evidence-based arguments, and responses to essential questions such as:
-What does resistance look like in visual art?
-How do artists challenge existing narratives, systems, or institutions?
-In what ways can joy be an act of resistance?
Students regularly revise their writing through peer discussion and teacher feedback, strengthening both disciplinary literacy and visual literacy.
Component 4: Creating Multimodal Artwork
As a culminating performance task, students synthesize their learning by designing and creating an original multimodal artwork that communicates a personally meaningful perspective on resistance. Students select a topic of personal, local, national, or global significance and determine how best to communicate their message using multiple modes of expression, which may include visual art, photography, collage, text, digital media, sound, video, performance, or mixed media.
Students are encouraged to consider both traditional and contemporary understandings of resistance, recognizing that resistance may be expressed through protest, advocacy, cultural preservation, identity, community care, celebration, or joy. The final work should intentionally incorporate themes of hope, resilience, affirmation, or collective empowerment while demonstrating thoughtful application of artistic techniques, conceptual development, and personal voice.
Throughout the creative process, students engage in planning, critique, revision, artist reflection, and presentation—culminating in an opportunity to share their work with the learning community and explain how their artistic choices communicate their understanding of resistance.
By the end of the unit, students will have developed an understanding of resistance as both an artistic and social practice while demonstrating the ability to analyze, interpret, write about, and create meaningful works of art that reflect their own perspectives and lived experiences.
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