Viewpoints: Grade 9-12 Lesson Plans for Face It! Curriculum

1. Lesson Plans: Face It!
This resource is
supported in part by
Raye and Ben Foster Jr.
Contents
1. How To Read A Portrait
Use this page as a Reading Readiness activity.
All Texas Essential
2. Portraits in this Resource
Knowledge and Skills:
Standards for McNay Art Museum
Multidisciplinary Units
referenced in this resource Fairfield Porter exhibition
are taken from the 3. Lesson Plans
Knowledge and Skills
subsection of the Language Arts Grade
curriculum areas. Consult
TEKS web site Reading & Writing Portraits 4-8
http://www.tea.state.tx.us Viewpoints 9-12
/teks
Art
Color Me Crazy K-5
Face Prints K-5
Drawing a Charcoal Self- Portrait from a Photo 6-12
Original lesson plans
contributed by: Social Studies
Susan Ferris, Family Mobiles K-5
Kathy Guerra,
Honor Moorman, People from the Past 6-12
Teri Evans -Palmer, 4. Sources Worth Consulting
Jeanette Pierce,
and Linda Talbert. Web Sites with Portrait Lessons
Videos in the Teacher Resource Center for Vis ual Arts
For information, questions,
or comments about this
resource please email Web sites accessed August 2003
trc@mcnayart.org
Copyright © 2003 The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas. All rights reserved.

2. Images
How To Read A Portrait
Facial Expression
What do the eyes and mouth reveal about the person/people in the painting?
Woman with Plumed Hat.
Pose
What does the position of the body reveal about the person/people?
Portrait of Hans Frisch. Gesture
What do the hands, feet, arms, or legs reveal about the person/people?
Clothing
What type of clothing is each person wearing (dressy, casual, work clothes)?
What does the clothing reveal about the person/people in the painting?
Portrait of the Artist
with the Idol. Point of View
Where was the artist standing when he, she painted this?
What do you see that makes you say that?
Environment
The Red Blouse. What do all the things around the person reveal? (Setting, background, props)
What is the location for the portrait? Inside/Outside?
Why do you think the artist included certain objects in the painting?
What does the location of objects say about their importance?
What time period do you think is being shown?
Sing Sorrow.
Feelings
See videotapes available to
What is the person feeling? What do you see that makes you say that?
borrow from the McNay Art
If there is more than one person in the portrait, what are the relationships between the people?
Museum Teacher Resource
What are the relationships between the artist and the sitter?
Center at the end of this
What do you see that makes you say that?
resource.
Elements of Art
How does each of the elements of art––color, line, shape, texture, space, value––contribute to the artist’s
message about the person in the portrait?
Copyright © 2003 The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas. All rights reserved.
1

3. Images
Viewpoints
Curriculum Area
July Interior. Language Arts
Grade Levels
9-12
Katie and Anne. Objectives
The student will:
§ Compare and contrast two paintings, focusing on visual details, in a written text.
§ Analyze the use and effect of visual details in writing.
Lizzie at the Table.
§ Write journal entries, as well as poems, using point of view and personification.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)
See TEKS listed below with Activities.
The Screen Porch. On line at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/teks/index.html [accessed 08/03]
While these lesson plans were created for ninth grade students, they may be adapted for other grades.
Materials
How to Read a Portrait question page (in this resource)
paper, pencils
Sylvia Plath’s poem “Mirror” (www.sylviaplathforum.com)
The Red Blouse.
Vocabulary
See videotapes available to
borrow from the McNay Art Point of view is the position or perspective from which something is observed or depicted.
Museum Teacher Resource Speaker of a poem, like the narrator of a story, is the voice that talks to the reader.
Center at the end of this Personification is a figure of speech in which an object, animal, or idea is given human characteristics.
resource.
Activities
Journal Entry
1. If someone walked into your bedroom, what would he or she see? Using specific details, describe
your bedroom as thoroughly as possible. TEKS 9.1 (A, B), 9.2 (A), 9.4 (A)
2. Trade descriptions with a partner (or read them aloud in a small group) and make a drawing of
another person’s bedroom according to the details in the description.
3. Repeat the writing activity using Fairfield Porter’s paintings July Interior and Lizzie at the Table as
prompts. What do the details in the paintings suggest about the artist's life and family?
Reading and Writing
1. Find two news articles about the same topic, preferably from very different sources such as The
New York Times and your local paper, or Time and People magazines.
2. Read each article and underline or highlight details included in the story.
3. Discuss how the choices of details affect each story. TEKS 9.8 (A, B), 9.12 (B, D)
4. Using the description you wrote in your journal, create a found poem about your bedroom, or the
bedroom in July Interior. Underline or highlight key words and phrases from your description.
Then rearrange these words and phrases into a poem. You may want to use additional words to
hold your poem together. TEKS 9.1 (A, B)
1

4. Viewpoints
Journal Entry
1. Imagine that an object in your home could speak. Write what that object would say about its
experiences and about the people living in your home. TEKS 9.2 (A), 9.4 (A), 9.7(B)
2. What would the objects on the table in the painting Lizzie at the Table say?
Reading and Writing
1. Read and discuss “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath. TEKS 9.8 (A, B, C), 9.10 (A, B) The speaker of a
poem, like the narrator of a story, is the voice that talks to the reader. Personification is a figure of
speech in which an object, animal, or idea is given human characteristics. Identify the speaker of
the poem and the poet’s use of personification. TEKS 9.10 (A), 9.11 (G)
2. Write a poem modeled after Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror” in which your mirror, or something else in your
room, is the speaker describing YOU. TEKS 9.1 (A)
3. With a partner or in groups of three, examine and discuss the various points of view suggested in
Katie and Anne and The Screen Porch.
4. Compare and contrast the points of view of the subjects, and the artist. What are they seeing,
thinking, and feeling? What about Porter’s view, his thoughts and feelings while creating the
portrait? What do you, as a viewer of the painting, think and feel about what you see? TEKS 9.10
(A), 9.1 (C)
5. Now write a diary entry about the day depicted in the painting from the point of view of one of the
subjects, or Fairfield Porter. Be sure to use first person (“I”). TEKS 9.1 (A), 9.1 (B) If you plan to
use the extension activity below, each person in the pair or group should write from a different
person’s point of view. This activity may also be used with Henri Matisse’s The Red Blouse.
6. Working with your partner or group, blend the diary entries into a single narrative with shifting
points of view. You might want to use a third-person narrator to hold the piece together and
indicate the shifts in perspective. TEKS 9.2 (B)
7. Read your diary entries or blended narrative aloud to the class. TEKS 9.16 (D)
Copyright © 2003 The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas. All rights reserved.
2