TITLE: Character Development: Examine Expressions Through Portraiture

ENGLISH: Composition

GRADE LEVEL: Grades 9, 10

TEKS:

Chapter 110 1 A, B, C English I, II 2 A,B, C 3 A, B, C 19 A, B

OBJECTIVE:

The student will use a work or art as a springboard to a personal narrative or descriptive writing.

The student will create a collage to identify tone through art.

The student will use inference to discern what might have caused an individual to feel the emotion that is depicted in art or literature.

MATERIALS:

• See images below

DISCUSSION:

1. What are some words that describe how someone feels?
2. How do artists show feelings of people in paintings?
3. What colors help to suggest certain moods or feelings?
4. How can an artist use space and arrangement to help create a feeling?
5. Define tone/mood/atmosphere in literature. How can the reader recognize or identify these terms in a piece of writing?
6. If you look at Chinese or another culture's artwork, how are facial expressions depicted? What difference is there in a viewer's reaction if the faces have no distinguishing expressions?
7. How do ads or magazine photos reflect emotion? How do the photographs differ from the paintings? What similar techniques do both the artists and modern photographers use to reveal emotions?

VOCABULARY TERMS:

tone, mood, atmosphere

PROCEDURE:

• Give students a worksheet with twenty-four small circles, in four columns with six circles down in each column (number of circles matches the number of faces on the art print). Have students draw faces and facial expressions to create a variety of feelings and then write an adjective beneath each face to describe the feeling appropriate to the drawing.
• Discuss how the changing facial expressions help to show the feeling of the individual or to make the reader identify with that specific feeling. Brainstorm lists of adjectives, then divide them into three main groups -- positive feelings, negative feelings, neutral or objective.
• In pairs or groups, have students then find pictures in magazines, newspapers, or original drawings to create a collage of at least 9 different feelings. Label each expression as to the possible feeling expressed. Share these in class discussion. Use a thesaurus to add one or two related words to as many of the adjectives as possible.
• Look at the Chinese painting. Discuss the different facial expressions revealed on the painting. You might compare this painting with other Chinese art works which show very stylized and emotionless faces. Compare such faces to those in the original art to see how this one shows such a variety of feelings.
• For the main work of twenty-four faces, imagine what might have happened in the individuals' lives to have created such feelings. Write a short scenario for one of the faces on the painting. Try to choose words that reinforce how the individual feels. Use the scenario for the basis of a longer writing assignment. Students might write a brief story, or newspaper article so that the facial expression infers the feeling that the writing develops. Share these in class or display them on the bulletin board. • Connect the discussion to the literary terms tone, mood, or atmosphere. This could then be followed up by connecting to a short story or poem. For example, think of the facial expression for the narrator in Poe's "The Telltale Heart," or the young boy's expression in "The Scarlet Ibis." What facial expression might be on the painting tied to Browning's poem "My Last Duchess"?

EVALUATION:

Rubric for composition which addresses the areas of composition as well as appropriate feeling. Collage may be evaluated for neatness, accuracy.

RESOURCES:

Other Chinese or Eastern art, at least one which does not develop facial features sufficiently to reveal emotion.