My intention is to use this site as it relates to shows and collections at the New Britain Museum of American Art. Shantell Martin's work has something to do with comics and graphic novels, but it is abstract and could be related to aboriginal dreamtime paintings, as well. I couldn't copy her art image from the museum site (copyright?) but here is the write up:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L5J5PBaO-Z8zicNSNrryV-vq1eA6fawT/view?usp=drivesdk. Not sure whether this will take you anywhere, so we can look for her website. This year honors the centennial of women voting for the first time, so many museums nationwide are celebrating by showing and acquiring more art by women of diverse backgrounds. Our year was supposed to be 20 Women Artists -- All women, all year. Our new director, from CA and S. Korea, is updating our someway stodgy New England way of doing things. Docents have been meeting by zoom to plan materials and strategies so I will share what I learned with them using LOC collections about children (we tour school groups) and American women artists. I will also try to draw on our large illustration collections comics which students will probably relate to, as a bridge to other pieces in the art museum.

For my culminating lesson, Metal Arts 3 Honors students will explore how comic artists and visual artists visually communicate stories about personal experiences, societal issues and historical narratives.  Students will practice creating visual symbols to convey meaning by creating simple, short narratives using those visual symbols and by crafting their own visual narrative that conveys a personal story or explores a societal/historical narrative.  Student artwork will take the form of a hinged metal artwork (book, necklace, sculpture, etc.).  This unit is part of the advanced metal arts scope and sequence that simultaneously builds student skill in advanced metalworking and ability to convey personal voice.

Students will use the LOC primary source album I created, "Teaching Narrative in Comics and Art", to access primary source comics, as well as other primary source artworks sourced from other sites as indicated in my lesson plan.

Link to Narrative, Hinged Metal Artwork Inspired by LOC Cartoons and Narrative Visual Art Lesson Plan

My lesson is designed for my Photoshop class. In short, students will locate a painting from the LOC website and then create a digital “forgery” of it using Photoshop’s brush tool. The full lesson text can be read here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SPtT_e49cHr1xmKvQO2OucShTrYYstHWHiNy8AcNXMk/edit?usp=sharing.

The Pennsylvania high school technology standards are sparse, but standard 15.4.12.G (“Create an advanced digital project using sophisticated design and appropriate software/applications”) aligns perfectly with this lesson. Prior to accessing the LOC, my students will learn the basics of the brush tool by creating a simple digital painting of a house while experimenting with the brush settings. Then, I will guide students through the LOC’s website to find paintings. Next, they will select a painting - with some guidance to ensure they select one of an appropriate complexity to match their current skill level - and place it into Photoshop as a locked background layer. They will have two full class periods to paint their “forgery” directly on top of the original, which gives them the chance to recreate the style of the original artist and makes it easy to match colors with the eyedropper tool. Finally, they remove the background layer, display their painting, and we complete a gallery walk and leave feedback for one another in the form of post-it notes.

I’ve also created an album with LOC paintings of vary complexity which can be provided either to all students after they explore the LOC website or given to students who are struggling to locate paintings on their own: https://tpsteachersnetwork.org/the-arts-and-primary-sources/paintings

The Immigrant and Refugee Experience Using Comics and Graphic Novels

This lesson is to help students in English Language Learning classes develop language through illustrations, while exploring the issues faced when immigrating to a new country or fleeing persecution in their homelands. Researching primary sources through the Library of Congress will help them with this endeavor so that they can begin to document their experiences with Comics and Graphic Novels. Students come to America with a wide range of language abilities and educational experiences. Learning through primary sources will support their experiences and help them compare and contrast immigrant experiences in the 20th century with current day events.

https://www.thecomicstrips.com/comic-strip/Candorville/2019-04-22/177323

https://www.loc.gov/collections/?q=Immigration

I am so impressed by the variety and depth of approaches to integrating comics as primary sources into multiple age and subject groupings.  You all are amazing!!!

Art 9H (Freshman) student artists  will explore line, composition, and narrative to create a six-panel comic book. Student artists will develop a comic based on something that has personal meaning to them.

• Students will be introduced to line, composition, and comics. Students will create a 6-panel comic book using line and composition to tell a story that has personal meaning. Students will demonstrate effective use of the creative process (observe, design, connect, produce, respond) to plan, develop, and create artwork that reflects personal artistic intent, meaning. 

When I started thinking of a lesson to flip for my students, I gave myself a few parameters for building the lesson. I wanted a lesson that might get the kids to think a bit, would force them to reflect on their history, would be accessible to all without a username or download, and would be repeatable every year. 

To accomplish these goals, I knew I would have to start with a super stable open education resource. One of my favorite open education resources is the Library of Congress (LOC). The LOC is the Library of our country. They have copies of books, manuscripts, photos, artwork, and other goods that go back to the earliest days of civilization to modern time. Their collection in Washington D.C. is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever visited. They have taken the deep cultural resources of the library and moved many of them to a digital resource located at https://www.loc.gov/ that is free for all to use, so I focused my lesson on this site. 

Our sophomores take a course called American Studies. This course blends traditional history class with a literature course. The students read at least one book from each of the eras of American history that they study. For part of the course, they study segregation and “Jim Crow” laws, along with reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. I wanted to integrate this segregation lesson with some of the primary source political cartoons from the LOC. 

I used primary sources from the LOC and I also used voice-thread as a method for students to record their comments on the documents in anyway that suited them. Here is a link to a google doc of my lesson. Please feel free to modify it to fit your class. 

My lesson, You won’t believe what happened at school today, is written for middle school art students.  This lesson focuses on photographs from the Library of Congress of children at school, and different comics throughout history, which will be used to inspire students to create their own comics.  Students will collaborate in a variety of exercises analyzing comics and photographs.  They will also create sketches and participate in various drawing exercises.  For the culminating activity students will create their own mini comic books based on the theme, “You won’t believe what happened at school today!”

Students will use the Inquiry Deconstruction Tool (https://www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/tpsdirect/pdf/Primary-Sources-and-Inquiry.pdf) to analyze the image Daily inspection of teeth and fingernails (https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2018678589/).  Students will also look at photos of children in outdoor school in the early 1900’s.  These images can be found in my album on the LOC. https://tpsteachersnetwork.org//the-arts-and-primary-sources/images-for-middle-school-comic-lesson

For my culminating lesson plan, I decided to work with one of the units I already use with my elementary students.  The unit consists of figure drawing, wire sculpture of a figure, and the newly-added 4 panel comic.  I was actually able to integrate images from the LOC as well as an added component to the lesson inspired by comics.  I feel that adding these pieces really solidifies the unit as a whole, while at the same time gives my students exposure to primary sources as well as another art form to experiment with in my class.

When the figure drawing and wire sculptures are complete, I will give my students a quick introduction to comics using the TPS album I created titled Images for Elementary Intro to Comics.  This album shows several examples of current comics and characters young students may be familiar with, as well as comics that date back to the beginning including Superman and a family reading the comics in a newspaper.  From there, students will have time to create their own 4 panel comic starring their wire figure.  I am hoping that their imaginations will run school-appropriately wild and in the end, I will be able to display their wire figure next to their completed comic.  I feel that ending the unit with the comic drawing is a great way to tie it all together, bringing back in the figure drawing that the unit started with on the first day. 

The objective of this lesson play is to have my students make a comic book based on a historical event in Black History. It will show them not only can they find art in the comics media, but they can also be used for educational purposes. The lesson plan is broken down into several weeks were the students will be introduced to websites such as the Liberty of Congress to find and gather resources. They will also participate in assignments that will improve their drawing skills and give them experience in drawing comics. Comics have been used for entertainment before, but this assignment will show them the hard work that goes into making a comic.

Black History Comic