I don’t think it means what you think it means. - Arts Education

Arts Integrated Lesson: Visual Art and Language Arts

I don't think it means what you think it means.

A Lesson about metaphor

Written by Joel Baxley SCEA Director of Visual Art Education

In this lesson, students will explore visual and verbal metaphor. They will compare the uses of metaphor by writers and artists and create a painting that extends or elaborates on a verbal metaphor they have developed from a basic sentence.

1

? 2015 Southeast Center for Education in the Arts The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Standards

Tennessee Language Arts (5th Grade)

National Visual Art Standards (5-8)

Craft and Structure 4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone..

1. Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes b. Intentionally take advantage of the qualities and characteristics of art media, techniques, and processes to enhance communication of their experiences and ideas

3. Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols, and ideas b. Use subjects, themes, and symbols that demonstrate knowledge of contexts, values, and aesthetics that communicate intended meaning in artworks

Language Arts

Students will:

? Identify and analyze metaphors in works of literature.

? Interpret figurative language. ? Create a written metaphor that makes

a basic sentence more descriptive.

? Use images constructed in sketches to elaborate on the metaphor.

Objectives

Visual Art

Students will:

? View works of art that communicat metaphorically and analyze the imagery chosen by the artists.

? Interpret visual metaphors in works of art.

? Draw from a verbal metaphor to generate imagery for an original painting.

? Use descriptive language as a basis for visual choices in the painting.

? 2015

2

Southeast Center for Education in the Arts

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Formative:

Assessments

? As a group, students identify metaphors in selected texts and provide possible interpretations.

? As a group, students analyze and interpret visual metaphors in works of art. ? Students discuss the range of mental images generated by verbal metaphors. ? Students recommend imagery to suit a change in a painting's title. ? Students discuss the impact of changes to a color scheme upon the message

communicated by the painting. ? In small groups, students identify a metaphor in a text, analyze the modifying words used

to make the metaphor more vivid and specific, and provide the class their interpretation of the metaphor. ? Students participate in the creation of an image to illuminate one of the metaphors from

Summative (GRASPS model):

Goal Students will better understand the purpose and power of metaphor in written and visual communication

Role Artists

Audience Classmates, teacher

Situation

Product

Standard

Students are given a basic sentence and asked to develop a metaphoric description of how the action in the sentence occurred or what the subject of the sentence is like.

A written metaphor and a painting that describes or elaborates on its imagery

The written metaphor should provide an image for the reader that modifies or explains the characters and actions of the base sentence. ? The written metaphor should also contain specific, detailed descriptive

language to further push the reader's understanding of the sentence. ? The written metaphor should also contain specific, detailed descriptive

language to further push the reader's understanding of the sentence. For instance, not just "He was a bull moving through the room", but "He was a giant red raging bull flailing back and forth through the dark, crowded room".

The painting will be consistent with, or elaborate on, an interpretation of the written metaphor. ? The artist's selection of imagery will reflect that of the metaphor ? The composition and use of color will align with the written metaphor and

the descriptive language contained therein. For instance, if the metaphor reads "She was a ravenous raging red beast" then the main subject should be red, of course, but the colors chosen for the background or other imagery contained in the painting should reflect "ravenous" and "raging".

The label that accompanies the painting will include: ? The base sentence from which the metaphor was developed

"Dad brushed his teeth." ? The metaphor developed by the student

"He was a huge, rabid, pink hippo."

Wiggins, G. and McTigh, J. (1998). Understanding By Design. ASCD. Alexandria, VA.

3

? 2015 Southeast Center for Education in the Arts The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Lesson Procedures

Session One:

1. View a painting with apparent metaphorical intent such as Rene Magritte's The League of Frightened Men. Discuss the work and how the picture might mean more than just what is apparent at first glance. If, as in the Magritte painting, the title doesn't seem to suit the image, discuss why it might be named so.

2. Read a passage from a poem containing metaphor, such as "The Secrets" by Brett Warner in which the poet describes people as forests. Compare this description to a dictionary definition of "forest". Guide the class to interpret the meaning of the metaphor.

The League of Frightened Men, Rene Magritte, 1942

3. Explain that the class will work to understand how writers and artists can show or say one thing in order to communicate something else.

4. Present definitions of metaphor in literature and in visual art. ? In writing, a metaphor is a figurative comparison written without like or as He was an animal! He ate everything in the house. What a little angel she is.

? Read a passage that contains both metaphors and similes together with the class. Ask the class to identify metaphors contained in the passage.

? In visual art, a metaphor is an image that shows one thing to help you understand something else (a picture of a monkey in a business suit, etc).

? Show the class a group of images. Ask them which they think might be intended as a metaphor and have them explain.

5. Introduce examples of verbal metaphor from selections of prose and poetry. Ask the class why the authors chose to use such strange language. ? Point out the power of metaphors to create mental images that help readers better understand the text.

? Identify the modifying words used by the authors to make the images they have created for the reader vivid and specific.

6. Guide the students in a similar discussion of visual metaphors. The imagery in many works of art can be complex and the symbols obscure, so choose images that are easy to understand. Some of the most accessible visual metaphors can be found in political cartoons such as Thomas Nast's depictions of Boss Tweed as a vulture or big business as a man with moneybags for brains.

? 2015

4

Southeast Center for Education in the Arts

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

The "Brains", Thomas Nast 1871

Point out that artists may use such imagery for many reasons, but one reason is that a literal depiction of a subject may not achieve the emotional response in the viewer that the artist desires. Compare, for example, photos of William Tweed with Nast's depiction of him. How would the impact of Nast's cartoons have been different if he had just drawn what Boss Tweed really looked like and written below the picture "This is a bad, greedy man"?

7. Ask why an artist might choose an image to communicate a given idea. Why did Magritte choose owls for The League of Frightened Men? Brainstorm images that might have been used if the painting had been The Angry Men or The Depressed Men, etc.

8. Distribute excerpts from texts to groups of three or four students. Ask the groups to read the text they have been given and identify at least one metaphor used by the author. Then, have the students discuss the following within their groups: ? The literal meaning of the metaphor (the big kid, the boys fighting, etc)

? The mental images generated by the metaphor and the words the author used to create those images

9. Have each group report their findings to the class.

10. Provide each group with a basic sentence describing an action (He ate the sandwich. She opened the door. Etc.). Ask each group to decide how each action was performed and create a metaphor for that action. For instance, He ate the sandwich greedily. He was a pig.

11. Have groups read their metaphors to the class. Highlight one of these and discuss the images that it brings to mind. Demonstrate a drawing that might show what the metaphor is saying. Have students direct the visual choices that must be made. What kind of pig? How much of the pig needs to be on the page? What should the pig be doing? How do I show that? Discuss placement on the page, facial expressions, actions, etc. that might contribute to the viewer's understanding.

12. Go back to the text. Using the drawing as a guide, choose adjectives that might help the reader better capture the imagery in his or her mind. Not just "He was a pig", but "He was a fat, greasy pig devouring that poor sandwich."

13. Present the summative task to the class. They are each going to create their own visual and verbal metaphor. They will take a basic sentence like the ones they worked with in groups and write a metaphor of their own, then they will create a painting that echoes or elaborates on their writing.

14. Provide each student with a new basic sentence and some scrap paper. They should first decide what they are trying to describe in the sentence. Ask them to consider how the subject did whatever he or she or they did or what sort of person the subject is. Allow them time to write, facilitating as needed. At this point, they should have a basic metaphor (He was a pig, she was a monkey, etc).

5

? 2015 Southeast Center for Education in the Arts The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download