Asian action I: Character details

Students will use drawing and writing to study characters in Asian art, focusing on the potential stories hinted at by the many details depicted in the art examples. This lesson draws on the richly detailed and expressive human and animal characters depicted in the arts of Asia. Is there a reason why Durga has so many arms? What about Ganesha and that elephant head?

A lesson plan for grade 2 Visual Arts Education, Information Skills, and Social Studies

Learn more

• Asian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Asian art gallery

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Related topics

• Learn more about Asia, arts, descriptions, drawing, fine art, hands-on, information literacy, and journaling.

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

• write about and draw details that describe and elaborate on Asian characters (specifically gods, goddesses, people, or creatures central to Asian stories and depicted in Asian artwork).
• assess the similarities and difference between Asian artworks from different countries by comparing their drawn and written details.
• speculate on the actions of characters using the details they have observed.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

2 days

Materials/resources

• Student-created journals.
• Drawing paper (12″ x 18″).
• At least one larger art image for demonstrations
• A large world map or map of Asia.
• Hand-held art images from Asia or a PowerPoint presentation with images. I made a PowerPoint presentation using images from museum websites. This presentation cannot be posted here due to copyright issues. Whether using hand-held images, presentation, or both, be sure to include the country that artwork is from.
• At least one additional book of Asian Art. A good place to look for examples is Asian Art Portfolio: Masterpieces from the Asia Society by Stacy Miller.

Reserve books at the media center for students who may need additional resources beyond those provided at the start of class.

Technology resources

Two or more computers with internet access for groups to view images, if using a PowerPoint presentation and to visit museum websites.

Pre-activities

Before this lesson can begin, students will need to create a journal (e.g. a Writing Journal with space for drawing and ruled lines, or an Art Journal with unruled pages).

Activities

Set up: Exposure to Sources

Place hand-held visuals so that small groups of students can see the same images from their seats or tables (several centers where groups of visuals can be spread out and viewed). For each computer, add Asian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the “bookmarks” and upload the PowerPoint Presentation, if using.

On a poster or a board, make a list of the following Asian countries: Thailand, Nepal, Tibet, China, India, Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Korea. This will be referenced by students periodically, so place in an easy to view location.

Day 1

Motivation (15 min.)

• Pick one larger image to begin the lesson. Share this artwork and let students openly reflect on what they see without much teacher commentary (positive recognition only). Be sure to model how a student would find the country of origin in the label on the print. They should search for the country name on each print and record this in their journals. Do not forget to use the map and list of country names!
• After several comments, ask students to describe just the character (e.g. clothes, tools or weapons, mood or emotions, gesture, action, or posture, etc.) Tell students that they will write and draw other details about characters in their journals very soon.
• Before students work independently, ask them to guess what the character might be doing, or what the character will do soon. Recognize verbally when a student connects evidence they observe to their speculations about the future actions of the character. Encourage using evidence by modeling the behavior. This activity is not meant to treat Asian art of a religious nature as simply characters that can be used in any story. Instead, the function of speculation is to convey the notion that details are connected to actions in a story. Students can see that an image of Ganesha has an elephant trunk and different items in his hands. They can speculate that he uses his elephant trunk to eat what is in one of his hands. “Why is he eating?” is a question that students can guess about, or read about in the cultural stories specific to Ganesha. Many of the characters depicted are in fact gods or goddesses revered for their actions in specific meaningful stories.

Independent Student Work (30 min.)

For independent work, students will use the available images (hand-held, larger format, and computer viewed) and their journals. Ask students to individually draw and record with writing as many observed details (descriptive words, representational drawings, thoughts and ideas, etc.) as they can, for only one image per page. Students should be encouraged to each study 2-4 images from several different countries. I recommend the students write the country at the top of each page.

While students investigate, move around and observe. If students are having trouble you have several choices: try to ask questions or try to model drawing details and descriptive writing. Another strategy would be to hold up an image that interests the struggling student for the whole class to see and give the whole class an opportunity to share possible details to be drawn or described. If writing or drawing is just not working, let students use an additional Asian art book to simply view and look at as many details as possible. The same student could present verbally to the class his or her observations.

Sharing and Closure (5 min.)

Call for the attention of the class. Give several students a chance to share details they observed in specific works of art. Suggest that students begin thinking of a single character they are most interested in to prepare for the next day. Convey the closure message that there is a story behind every unique character and artists use details to tell the special pieces of each story.

Day 2

Choosing a Character (30 min.)

Instruct students to begin thinking of a single character to draw in detail. They should sketch this character on the drawing paper (12″ x 18″). Stress to the students to include a large number of details.

Sharing and Closure (20 min.)

Several students (at least) should be given a chance to share their character drawing and some of the details they noticed. The more students who share, the easier it will be to convey the closure message. Simply put, Asian art depicts many different characters, each with unique stories and full of many details hinted at in the artwork.

Assessment

There are three components for assessment in this lesson. The first two are student generated products: their journal pages with many details and their character drawing. The third component is how well students used details as evidence for their speculations.

Items in the journal are obvious choices for assessment. Based on the objectives above, we are looking for a high number of details noticed and a quality in their rendering that shows the distinctness of each work of art (e.g. the student drew arms for several observed works. Are they distinct from each other?)

Using details as evidence for speculations is more complicated. Not every student can be assessed for this goal because not every student will have a chance to speak their opinion. My recommendation is to assess only those students who speak and save the objective for other lessons, when you can call on the remaining students.

To facilitate assessment use the attached rubric. Be sure to use the column for students who speculated either as they are talking or soon after. The information you record can become a record to chart student growth in the crucial high-order thinking skill of using evidence to support opinions.

Supplemental information

Comments

I am able to fit all those minutes in one art lesson because I have sixty-minute classes. Also note: This lesson plan was created in a LEARN NC workshop held in Chapel Hill. This workshop was funded by the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics for the purpose of giving teachers the time, energy, and resources to create lesson plans. Using the Ackland Museum in Chapel Hill was an inspiration for helping us to incorporate the elements of arts education into our series of lessons.