Classroom Activities:
Activity 1: Curating Resistance: Students work in collaborative teams to curate a virtual museum exhibition using the provided list of Contemporary Resistance Themes and Discussion Questions below. Each team assumes the role of museum curators responsible for selecting a collection of six to ten works, organizing, and interpreting works by artists, making sure not to overlap works with any of the other curatorial teams. Teams will confer and conclude by creating a visual concept map of the entire curated collection that will be displayed throughout the classroom and hallways.
Learning Goal: Students investigate how artists communicate resistance through visual language while developing curatorial thinking and conceptual analysis.
Contemporary Resistance Themes and Discussion Questions
-Academic Resistance: How can education become a form of resistance today?
-Peer Pressure Resistance: When is it difficult to resist the expectations of your peers or community?
-Social Media Resistance: How do ideas spread differently today, and what responsibilities come with sharing information?
-Authority Resistance: When is it appropriate to challenge authority?
-Community Resistance: Why is community often more effective than individual action?
-Civic Resistance: What responsibilities are associated with achieving political change?
-Mental Health Resistance: What helps people remain resilient during times of struggle?
-Resistance to Discrimination and Injustice: How do people challenge unfair systems, and unfair individuals?
-Technology Resistance: How does technology help and/or hinder movements for social change?
Resistance to Stereotypes: Why is challenging stereotypes important for achieving justice?
Activity 2: Close Looking-Deep Thinking: Students will engage with at least five works of art, one over five class periods by using the DCPS Five Encounters of Close Study.
Learning Goal: Students develop increasingly sophisticated interpretations through repeated encounters with artwork while documenting how meaning evolves overtime.
Contemporary Artist Repertoire:
Amy Sherald-The Bathers (2015)
Titus Kaphar-Behind the Myth of Benevolence (2014)
Barbara Kruger-Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground) (1989)
Kehinde Wiley-Rumors of War (2019)
Nick Cave-Soundsuits (1992-present)
Bisa Butler-To God and Truth (2019)
Activity 3: Writing Like an Artist, Thinking Like a Scholar: Students maintain semester-long Art Critic Journal that is organized around RACCER Responses. Each week students respond to writing prompts aligned with the DCPS Arts Framework that highlight (a) identity, (b) interaction, (c) language, (d) determination, (e) creation and (f) transformation alongside contemporary art and themes of resistance.
Learning Goal: Students strengthen visual literacy through evidence-based writing while preparing to articulate artist decisions required for the AP 2d and Design portfolio development.
RACCER Prompts Examples
-How does Barbara Kruger use typography as visual resistance, and what ways can you utilize similar media, techniques and contemporary resistance theme to create an original work?
-Discuss how Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley redefined portraiture with their paintings of the Obamas.
-How does Titus Kaphar challenge historical memory with his cut-canvas paintings? Discuss how various elements and principles of art create commentary on being included or excluded.
-How does Bisa Butler communicate identity with her art and engage in storytelling without spoken language?
Activity 4: Joy as Resistance: Students begin to identify a contemporary resistance theme they want to bring to life through multimodal artmaking.
Learning Goal: Students synthesize research, writing, critique, and artistic experimentations into an original body of work centered on a personally meaningful investigation.
Figures 3-5 are multimodal examples that I created to bring various themes to life visually. Notably in Figure 5, I made an acrylic and digital-mixed media painting that depicts lived experiences of a Black male navigating challenges that trigger the body’s fight-or-flight response. These traumatic or highly stressful experiences are often difficult to express through words alone, but visual art provides a safe outlet for exploring and communicating complex emotions. Through painting on canvas, digitizing the image, and remixing it into a digital collage, I processed these experiences in a way to detach myself from feelings of uncertainty, fear, and anxiety and made them more manageable. The creative process can also promote self-awareness, emotional regulation, and resilience by helping individuals make meaning of their experiences rather than remaining overwhelmed by them. As a result, art becomes a form of personal expression and healing.
Fig. 3. Newbold, Stephen C., Jr. Black is Beautiful, 2024, Oil and acrylic on canvas. https://hsf.fsu.edu/newbold-black-beautiful
This piece illustrates notable figures of the African diaspora—whose historical narratives in Africa, America, and abroad—exude resilience and persistence. Painted from left to right are Nina Simone, James Baldwin, Nelson Mandela, and W. E. B. Du Bois. The application of oil and acrylic paints on canvas fashions the beauty of Blackness—Black faces, and Black voices. The title of the piece, Black is Beautiful, is a love letter to Diane Carter Williams—former 4th grade teacher who recently joined the ancestors when she passed away in 2023. Whenever she would hear a student call another student “Black” (as an insult) she exclaimed “Black is beautiful, but ugly is to the bone.” This lesson followed me into my adulthood. Being Black is not a deficit; it is not an insult; it is beautiful.
Fig. 4. Newbold, Stephen C., Jr. Triumphant Heart: Cover art for HEAL, Volume 16. Florida State University College of Medicine, 2026. mixed media: acrylic painting and digital collage.
The Triumphant Heart series illustrates the tempestuous elements of life’s challenges. The heart serves as a resolute compass that beats with the rhythm of resilience in the face of adversity.
Fig. 5. Newbold, Stephen C., Jr. Wings and Armor: Black men, Masculinity and Self-Care. Mixed media: acrylic painting and digital collage.
In the U. S., many Black males at various levels of their development—from boys to men—learn that survival is not just instinctual. It is a necessary strategy to navigate the intricacies of the K-12 education system, relationships with law enforcement and other elements relative to the Black experience in America. With four decades of lived experience to guide me— I’ve developed a response arsenal of my own to help me traverse challenging times and still achieve positive outcomes. When it comes to love, war and matters of the heart—wings and armor could be a saving grace. Wings and armor are synonymous to the flight or fight responses that are at times necessary when navigating historical, institutional and societal challenges (23).
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