Sidewalk Chalk Art Review

By Jeff Burns

It’s the end of the year, and teachers are always searching for fun and meaningful ways to review material and prepare for those end of course tests, finals, and AP exams.  Why not take it outside and engage your students’ creativity in the process.

For a couple of years now, I have taken my AP US history classes outside to do sidewalk chalk review.  It’s simple and takes just a couple of periods.  First, I assigned each group one of the APUSH time periods. Their instructions were simple: design and create a sidewalk square that illustrates the most important themes, concepts, events, ideas, and people of the assigned period. They had one period to plan, and one period to draw. 

It doesn’t require much:  administrator’s permission and sidewalk chalk.  Dollar stores have cheap sidewalk chalk.  I got it for $1 a box at Dollar general.  Some students even brought their own.  Other useful tools that students brought included stiff dust brooms for erasing and spray water bottles. To get their best effort, I offered a replacement grade to the groups with the best squares, judged by the other US history teachers in my department.  

 

History’s Canvas: Using Art in the History Classroom

By Jeff Burns

My love of history has always gone hand in hand with a love for art, so I was excited when I was recently asked to present a couple of professional learning sessions for my districts history teachers.

I have always incorporated art in my units and lessons whenever I can, and I use artworks as bulletin board and room decoration, and I think it is an important aspect of human history that cannot be overlooked.  Art is a cultural hallmark that allows us to distinguish cultures, periods, and places.  Art tells us much of what we need to know about particular periods and places, intentionally or unintentionally providing important economic, social, and political details.    Art is both primary and secondary source material. Art reflects both a contemporary perspective of the periods and events of history and how perceptions of earlier periods have changed. The study of art promotes analytical and critical thinking skills. Finally, appeals to a variety of student interests and learning styles.

So what do you with art in the classroom?  Often, I use an artwork as a hook or a warm-up to get students’ interest and attention.  Choose a work that relates to your lesson.  It could be one that students would be familiar with or something they would not.  Sometimes the unfamiliar leads to great discussions since students are all analyzing something fresh.  For this activity, I practice a spiral questioning technique, moving from most basic to advanced, scaffolding to get to high order thinking.  Start with “What do you see?  No interpretations, no analysis.  Just what do you see in the work?”  Then gradually move into interpretation:  “What does this element mean? What was going on at the time this painting was done?  How does this relate to ….?  Etc.”

Another tool that can be a lot of fun is the act-it-out, a strategy that I learned from Teachers Curriculum Institute (TCI) or History Alive.  Project a painting, poster, or photograph and ask volunteers to stand in front and assume the roles of characters in the work.  They assume their postures, maybe even use simple props, and create a backstory for the character.  Then, the teacher (or another student) interviews them as if he/she is a reporter on the scene.  This can be done either to introduce or review a topic they’ve read or studied about.  Students have fun in the process, and usually some historical connections are made.

If you have several works for them to consider, do a gallery walk.  Post copies of the work around the room or in the halls.  Divide the class into small groups and rotate them through, allowing them to see and discuss each work and take notes.  You can guide the notetaking as you see fit, but there are at least three big questions:  1)  Description. What do you see? What is it?  2) Context.  How does this work reflect the time and place of its creation?  3) Synthesis.  Can you relate this work, the theme, the ideas behind it, to any other place and time?

Small groups might also look at works chosen by the teacher or brought in by students to reflect a particular period, for example the Renaissance.  You might have 4 or 5 works.  Each group has to determine why their assigned work is the quintessential Renaissance work.  If you were in charge of curating an exhibit and had to choose one and only one work to represent the characteristics and ideals of the Renaissance, why should it be your assigned work? They then have to make their case to their peers and convince their classmates in order to reach a class consensus.

After looking at an iconic work in class, you might ask students “How would this work be different if it were painted today or in another period and place?”  For example, what would Mona Lisa look like today?  What would a Mona Lisa of the Songhai Empire look like? 

Some resources for American History:

•      Smarthistory (Khan Academy) https://www.youtube.com/user/smarthistoryvideos

•      Art 1010 (Khan) https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history-basics/Art-1010

•      AP Art History https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/ap-art-history

•      Google Art Project https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE3E0B87FB1D9A3D6

•      Art History Lessons http://arthistoryteachingresources.org/about/

•      Artcyclopedia http://www.artcyclopedia.com/

•      Using Art in American History http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/war-for-independence/resources/using-works-art-teaching-american-history

•      Art History Timeline http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/art-history-timeline.html

•       Digital History Art http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/topic.cfm?topicID=3

•      Seeing American History through Art http://mag.rochester.edu/seeingAmerica/

•      Art History Websites http://besthistorysites.net/art-history/

•      Robert Hughes American Visions series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTeDUqlasCw&list=PLDF4A4CCB9DB13FEF

Sources for World History:

•      Art History Lessons http://arthistoryteachingresources.org/about/

•      Artcyclopedia http://www.artcyclopedia.com/

•      Using Art in World History http://www.phschool.com/eteach/social_studies/2000_10/essay.html

•      Art History Timeline http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/art-history-timeline.html

•      Sister Wendy videos https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sister+wendy

•      Simon Schama’s Power of Art series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP8Wkjs0P1o&list=PLhVnATSukg2H47jGXi0FjsrBRY_Z13TyP

•      Smarthistory (Khan Academy) https://www.youtube.com/user/smarthistoryvideos

•      Art 1010 (Khan) https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history-basics/Art-1010

•      AP Art History https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/ap-art-history

•      Google Art Project https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE3E0B87FB1D9A3D6

•      Art History Websites http://besthistorysites.net/art-history/

•      www.Renaissance-in-art.org

The Wrenching Pain of History

By Jeff Burns

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.  - Maya Angelou

 

Throughout the year in my US History classes, I tell lots of stories and include lots of unpleasantness as it arises.  My students often tell me that I ruin their day or dispel their childhood truths.  However, in January or early February, I usually get to the day in class that is the most depressing and silent day of the year, because I normally set aside a day to talk about lynchings and racial violence of the Jim Crow era.

 

Why?  I was never exposed to any of this information in school, but I think it is a necessary part of the study of history to study the bad and the good, the depressing and the uplifting, and good history and good citizenship both demand the full story, warts and all.

 

(Caveat:  I do teach mostly Advanced Placement and Honors students, juniors.  A teacher has to be aware of the maturity level and responsibility of their students.  My students are mature enough to take college level courses, hold jobs, and operate vehicles capable of mayhem and death.  They should be able to handle a major, if disturbing,  fact of  our country’s history.)

 

It starts as any other day, with no foreshadowing of the day’s subject.  I usually start by projecting seemingly benign images that I have lifted from lynching photos, like these:








Fort Lauderdale, FL, 1935, Rubin Stacy

 





Marion IN, 1930, Smith and Shipp

I ask questions like: What do you see?  When and where do you think this was?  Why?  Describe the crowd.  What kind of mood do you think they’re in?  Where do you think they are and what are they looking at?  Answers usually include concert, fair, speech, fireworks, etc.  Then I reveal the whole picture.  (You can google them for yourself.)  The result is always dumbfounded silence.  Then I read a couple of excerpts about specific cases and show a few more pictures before continuing the discussion of Jim Crow and racial violence.  Of course, the lesson’s not complete without showing the video ( or playing the song) of Billie Holiday performing  “Strange Fruit,” and examining the lyrics.  It always makes for a powerful discussion, and it is a powerful frame for the modern civil rights movement.  However, I have to stress again that it can be a very painful experience, and it has to be managed well.  It’s not for every student or every teacher.

Checkout the Histocrats' Bookshelf  for books on this topic.