Lesson Plans

A listening doll

http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/content/2202/

A lesson plan for Grades 3–4 Visual Arts Education

Provider: The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

In this ARTSEDGE lesson, students discuss the process of storytelling and listening to stories. Students about will learn abut the Native American Pueblo communities in the Southwest. Pueblo storytellers held a place of great importance in these communities. The older members of the tribe would help preserve the culture and heritage of the tribes by telling traditional folktales and historical stories to the younger generations.

The Pueblo people also have a great tradition of clay sculpture; they were especially good at creating small figures of people or animals. The Pueblos combined their skill at sculpture with their love of storytelling and began a tradition of creating “storyteller dolls.”

In this lesson, part of a curriculum unit titled “Sculpture,” students will:

  • learn about Native American storyteller dolls
  • create their own image of a person listening to a story
  • discuss and assess the various listening dolls created by the class

North Carolina Curriculum Alignment

Visual Arts Education (2001)

Grade 3

  • Goal 1: The learner will develop critical and creative thinking skills and perceptual awareness necessary for understanding and producing art.
    • Objective 1.06: Refine images of self, pets, family, friends, and environment.
  • Goal 2: The learner will develop skills necessary for understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes.
    • Objective 2.01: Expands control and manipulation of the media and tools which may include the following:
      • Photography - sun prints
      • Drawing - chalk, fine and broad markers, colored pencils, creates a variety of lines with tip, point and side, computer and software.
      • Cut paper - papers, found objects, fibers, glue, sharp-edged scissors, curling, scoring and stapling, cutting a variety of single and multiple shapes.
      • 3-D - paper mache, small hand tools.
      • Printmaking - cardboard
      • Painting - liquid acrylics, large and small brushes, computer and software.
      • Ceramic - coil construction, compound pinch and slab, addition, smoothing, self-created stamps.
      • Fibers - Knotting, small hand looms for fibers.
  • Goal 5: The learner will understand the visual arts in relation to history and cultures.
    • Objective 5.01: Identify the main purposes for art in a society.
    • Objective 5.03: Identify specific works of art as belonging to a particular culture, time and place.
  • Goal 7: The learner will perceive connections between visual arts and other disciplines.
    • Objective 7.02: Discuss how the artwork people produce reflects the times in which they live.

Grade 4

  • Goal 2: The learner will develop skills necessary for understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes.
    • Objective 2.02: Use additional art media, techniques and processes which may include:
      • Fibers - stitchery, a variety of fiber weaving techniques, felting and quilting
      • Cut paper - complex symmetrical folding and cutting;
      • Sculpture - experiments with varied tools including small hand tools.
  • Goal 5: The learner will understand the visual arts in relation to history and cultures.
    • Objective 5.01: Recognize that art can serve more than one purpose and/or function in a given culture.
    • Objective 5.06: Discuss themes which are most important to a particular culture.
  • Goal 7: The learner will perceive connections between visual arts and other disciplines.
    • Objective 7.01: Recognize that in a particular place or time, shared beliefs or knowledge will affect the ideas, issues or themes in all disciplines.