Ana McKeen

Project TEAM

Lesson Plan

12/15/06

  1. Title: Masks and Culture
  2. Context: This lesson was designed a 4th grade stand alone Expressive Arts lesson to introduce students to the concept of culture and cultural representations. This lesson could easily tie into the year long theme of expanding communities and learning about other groups of people. Total Lesson time: 75-80 minutes.
  3. Objectives:
  4. By the end of this lesson, students will be able to share a part of their own culture, by creating a mask that represents their culture in some way.
  5. By the end of this lesson, students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of the concept of culture, by speaking about the components and representations of culture in an informal discussion.
  6. Benchmarks:
  7. AR.05.CP.01 Use experiences, imagination, observations, essential elements and organizational principles to achieve a desired effect when creating, presenting and/or performing works of art.
  8. Understand and interpret events, issues, and developments in the history of one’s family, local community, and culture. SS.HS.02
  9. EL.04.SL.03 Use details, examples, anecdotes (stories of a specific event), or experiences to clarify information.
  10. Preparation:
  11. Gather supplies for mask making. Here is what I used: Paper plates, multiple colors of construction paper, river rocks, glass jewels, pompoms, glitter confetti, colored sand, colored rocks, leaves, moss, pinecones, acorns, ribbon, yarn, sponges – for textured painting, paint, paint brushes, containers to hold paint, glitter glue, butcher paper- to cover desks, paper bowls – to hold supplies, elmers glue.
  12. Get books about masks and culture. I used:
  13. The Art of African Masks: Exploring Cultural Traditions by Carol Finley. Lerner Publications Company, Minneapolis: 1999.
  14. African Masks: Can You Spot the Leopard? By Prestel
  15. Masks From Around The World:The Collection of Robert A. Ibold. Published by the Lancaster Museum of Art, 2002
  16. Read books, and mark pages you want to share with students with sticky notes for easy reference during the lesson.
  17. Cover desks and paint table with butcher paper
  18. Set up supply and circle areas. Have supplies laid out on table/s. Have large paper at circle where you can easily write on it and students can see it. Have books and markers ready
  19. Lesson Introduction/Set: Tell the students: Today we are going to be talking about something that is in all of our lives called culture. We are going to get the chance to talk about what culture is and then create a project that represents our own cultures. Can anyone tell me what culture is?
  20. Sharing Objectives: After sharing books with students and having a discussion abut what culture is, tell students that what we are going to do is create masks that represent our own cultures to share with the class. Explain that the idea behind the lesson is to get us to think about what our own culture is, how we can represent that culture and be able to share who we are with the rest of the class.
  21. Learning Activities:65-70 min
  22. Call students to the circle area, introduce the lesson and ask the question “What is culture?” (5 min)
  23. Have students share their ideas about what culture is. List ideas on the paper. Ask questions to have them elaborate or clarify their ideas if necessary. (5-7min)
  24. Introduce the topic of representation of culture, link specifically to masks. (3 min)
  25. Read a few passages from the book The Art of African Masks. (5 min)
  26. Have students briefly discuss what they have just learned from the book (3-5min)
  27. Share pictures of masks from different cultures from all three books. Ask students to be thinking about how the masks were made and how they represent that culture while they look (3-5 min)
  28. Tell students that they will be making their own masks. Brainstorm with them what they could do to represent their own culture in a mask. Support their ideas by referring them back to the list they made at the beginning of class, e.g. you said that language is a part of culture, how could you represent your language on a mask? (7-10 min)
  29. Layout ground rules: Paint at paint table only, take only the supplies you need (3 min)
  30. Answer any questions (3 min)
  31. Excuse students to gather supplies and start working. Transition time (3 min)
  32. Students work on masks, teacher circulates that room helping where needed (20-25 min)
  33. Have students volunteer to share masks with the class, explaining what they made and how it represents their culture (10-15 min)
  34. Closure (10 min): Have students as a group discuss what they have learned about culture and cultural representations. Discuss what they may have learned about themselves or their classmates’ cultures as well.
  35. Student Evaluation: Students will be evaluated based on their participation in informal discussions (both at the beginning and end of lesson) their participation in sharing their masks, and on whether they created a mask based on their culture. Students will not be evaluated on the quality of their art, but on the thought they put into it.
  36. Differentiation: Students who take a long time to finish will be given additional time later in the day. While students are creating their masks, I will circle the room to scaffold and support students who are having difficulties. This will also give students the chance to share their masks with me individually if they do not want to share with the class. This lesson could be adapted to different types of learners by decreasing or increasing the “work load”. E.g. TAG kids could write a paragraph describing their mask and culture, developing learners could get a mask template or additional time and scaffolding.
  37. Teacher Self Reflection:
  38. Before: I think that the hardest part of this lesson is going to be explaining the concept of culture to the students. It was hard for me to explain and understand as a graduate student, so I hope that I can explain and get them to understand. To support this, I will be making a list of their ideas, and prompting with some ideas of my own to fill in gaps. This way students have a concrete list to refer to. Also, when introducing masks I will read from a book based on the African culture that describes African culture so that they can get a description of another culture. Also, I anticipate that many students will say “I don’t have a culture” so I will be prepared to scaffold their thinking.
  39. After: I worried about the wrong things! The students caught on to the idea of culture right away and came up with great ideas and examples. This became even more clear as they shared their masks. Problems that I had with this issue included: not giving myself enough time to set up, it tool much longer than I anticipated to lay out materials and butcher paper the desks. Not giving enough space for materials, so that students crowded in and it got a little chaotic. Not giving enough time for the lesson itself. There were many more questions than I anticipated, and also many students wanted to share. Next time I would allow for more time for sharing of the masks. Finally, not having extension activities for those who got done early. Overall though, the lesson was a hit. The kids enjoyed the art activity and put a lot of thought into mask creation. When they shared their masks I was blown away at their understanding of culture and their ability to translate that to an art. This was amazing, and I would definitely teach the lesson again. I think it might be a great lesson for the beginning of the year as a “get to know you” activity. I learned a lot about my students from this lesson.