The power of a portrait

The students will use the portrait Mending Socks by Archibald Motley to explore how objects can be used to tell about a person's attributes and life.

A lesson plan for grades K–1 Guidance and Social Studies

By Evika Sturdivant

Learn more

• Mending Socks An image of the artwork by Archibald Motley and a summary from the Ackland

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• Learn more about guidance and social studies.

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

• actively participate in a group discussion about portraits.
• develop an understanding of how objects can represent important aspects of a persons life.
• select objects that represent their life and interests.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

30 minutes

Materials/resources

• reproduction of Archibald Motley’s Mending Socks from the Ackland Art Museum
• chart paper
• personal objects that the teacher brings in to describe him/herself
• large group space where portraits can be viewed by everyone

Technology resources

• computer with internet capabilities and method of projecting the Motley piece
• digital camera and appropriate software

Pre-activities

Students need to be familiar with participating in a “talking circle.” In a talking circle, children are seated in a circle and each child shares briefly on a given subject or chooses to pass. The goal is for each child to be able to give one sentence about the subject, forcing them to choose what is most important to say. The rest of the class focuses on being good listeners by looking at the speaker, keeping their bodies still, and thinking about what the speaker is saying. Students should also have been exposed to the rules for having a group discussion.

Activities

1. Show students the portrait Mending Socks by Archibald Motley. Make sure that everyone can see it clearly. Tell the children that the artist is Archibald Motley and that this is a picture of his grandmother.
2. Have the children connect with the picture by participating in a talking circle about their grandparents.
3. Introduce/discuss the word “portrait.”” Ask the children what they see in this portrait and list their observations on chart paper.
4. Go through the list and discuss what the children think each object tells us about Mrs. Motley. Be sure to emphasize that we are guessing what the objects say about Mrs. Motley.
5. Use the information from the painting summary on the Ackland’s website to confirm/clarify the meaning of the objects in the portrait. The script can be read to children or paraphrased by the teacher.
6. Bring out the items that you have brought in to share about yourself. Allow the children to briefly guess what they think the objects mean and then share with them why you chose each item. Model the thought process involved in choosing items to decribe yourself including what items you wanted to bring in, but could not.
7. Arrange the objects around yourself. Think out loud to model the thought that is put into arranging things. Have your assistant or a student take your portrait with the digital camera. Steps 6 and 7 should be repeated with other adults (the assistant, principal, guidance counselor, etc.) on other days.
8. Explain to the children that they are to bring in two or three objects to share with their classmates and that their objects should tell the rest of the class something about themselves. They need to get their parent’s permission to bring in the objects. Send a note home to parents explaining this assignment and encouraging the parents to let the child choose the objects.
9. You may use your discretion as to how you have the children share their objects. You may have one child share per day to coincide with a person-of-day routine (see Supplemental), have everyone share over the course of one day, or have small groups of children share each day over the course of a week. Allow the children to arrange their objects after they share them and then take their portrait with the digital camera.

Assessment

To assess the learning of this activity, I would use a grid or checklist to note student participation in the discussion and talking circle, what objects the student chose to bring in, and if the child was able to articulate what the objects represented about his/her life. See the Student Names attachment. You should fill in the names of your students and either check off or make comments in the grids.

Supplemental information

Person of the Day: In our classroom, we allow one child to be the “person of the day.” The student is in charge of bringing a snack for everyone for the day, is the line leader, and leads the class during calendar time. I send home a monthly snack calendar that informs the parent when their child will be person of the day. In my classroom, the children share their objects on their first day as person of the day.

Comments

This lesson was inspired by the staff at the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill who use this portrait in a similar manner. The lesson can be broken into two parts with the portrait taking the focus of the first part and the teacher sharing taking place in the second part for classes that have a shorter attention span.