Identity
Artist: Henri Matisse
-Studio
Mini Compositions: Collage
Artist: Chuck Close
Studio
Self-Portraiture: Crayon, watercolors
Artist: William Wegman
Studio: Artful Personifications: Mixed Media
The first month of school we have been talking about identity. Identity is what makes a person unique and stand out in the crowd. As teachers we need to iterate to our students the important of not only self-identity but understand the identity of others. . In Authentic Connections we learn that “interdisciplinary curriculum encourages students to generate new insights and to synthesize new relationships between ideas.” (Authentic connection Interdisciplinary work in the arts. 2002) If we were teaching our students about the importance of identity I believe that interdisciplinary instruction would initiate critical thinking skills and allow students to understand the idea overall. The studio projects in this class on identity could all be used in interdisciplinary curriculum. Take for example the collage, teachers could collaborate the first few weeks of school and participate in parallel instruction “involves agreement between two teachers to focus on some topic or concept,” (Authentic connection Interdisciplinary work in the arts. 2002) in literacy students could write about their self-identity and what makes them unique, then in art they can take what they wrote and create a collage of images that represent the words. The second two studios I felt were very similar and would be a good tool to modify for crossdisiplinary instruction “ features two or more subject areas addressing a common theme, concept or problem,” (Authentic connection Interdisciplinary work in the arts. 2002) as the teacher I would use the projects in writing, reading, and social studies. In literacy students could create a self-portrait of a character they are writing about, they could use images and other resources to create the self-portrait. In reading students could do a book report through either a self-portrait of the main character and talk about the importance of their looks; or they could develop and overall image of the book by using mixed media, this would allow them to capture the setting as the background, an image of the character, and a display of the main event. In social studies I feel that students should research famous Americans and then create a self-portrait of their findings based on that persons identity, they could also relate a famous American to a particular animal and explain why they represented them in that way.
Consortium of National Arts Education Associations. (2002). Authentic connections: Interdisciplinary work in the arts. Retrieved from
http://www.kennedycenter.org/education/ceta/arts_integration_definition.pdf
Consortium of National Arts Education Associations. (2002). Authentic connections: Interdisciplinary work in the arts. Retrieved from
http://www.kennedycenter.org/education/ceta/arts_integration_definition.pdf