Author Background

Title: American Children Tell Their Truths

Author/Creator: Linnie Aikens-Ávila

Inspired by the artwork of artist, Robert Shetterly

School: Peabody Charter School, Santa Barbara, CA

Email: aikens@peabodycharter.org

Linnie has been teaching 20 years, grades K-6, specializing in integrated authentic curriculum design, writing, art, technology and year-long-planning. She is always searching for ways to bring learning alive and help students relate on a deeper level by connecting personally, and thus, more meaningfully with it. Teaching responsibility and accountability threads throughout all of her units, as it does this one. She founded and teaches “Young Masters” Art and “Young Authors & Illustrators,” two after school classes for gifted students. In addition to teaching and curriculum writing, she mentors new teachers and assists in staff development.

Description of Unit:

American Children Tell Their Truths is an interdisciplinary, tech-based unit designed to help 5^th grade and 8^th grade students* understand different perspectives of U.S. History and to explore and express creatively their personal responsibility in terms of the present and future, and in the creation of their own history thereby. The unit, American Children Tell Their Truths encourages children to consider the historical perspectives they have learned to date and analyze the truths involved. Students research and review online Robert Shetterly’s artwork, Americans Who Tell The Truth, and then ponder, together with their families, their own truths about history, the present, and the future. Throughout this unit students are provided an opportunity for online collaboration through classroom website forums. Students do a mini research project on a notable American, and present their learning in a 3-5 slide Power Point presentation to the class. The end product involves the students’ expression of their personal truths through artwork created by hand then digitally imaged through Photoshop. Students present their learning and products with the class by using an LCD projector. In the end, the students in turn share their work with the school and community through book form and by a mural. The entire unit should take about 10-15 class periods depending upon the depth of instruction and age of students.

*Note: This unit can be adapted to 4^th grade , whereby perspectives and truths about state history are analyzed, as well as be adapted to 6^th and 7^th grade in relation to world history perspectives and truths.

Value:

What I love about this unit is its timelessness. In terms of content and critical thinking, it can’t become outdated. Even if technology changes, the basic principles of bias, perspective, and truth are valuable and timely at any age. This unit uses technology in a meaningful way: 1.) as a method to obtain and interpret knowledge, both written and unwritten, and 2.) as a way to express knowledge and collaborate as a community or in presentation form. Integrated, meaningful learning translates into better cognitive understanding and personal application. Students get time for art and deepen their understanding of themselves and the world at the same time; no more feeling guilty about “sacrificing” a core subject for art. A number of intelligences are used in this unit to bring the concept home for every child. Bringing the family together in homework rather than pushing paper and pencil; priceless.

Overview of Unit Lessons:

Lesson 1 (Week 1)

Introduction and Review of Robert Shetterly’s Work: The unit begins with a class discussion of US History studied to-date in terms of how the teller's perspective can color the "truth," and brainstorm examples as a class through small groups. (Note: this concept is repeatedly referenced when studying basic history lessons over the next month or so.) The teacher then follows up by presenting Robert Shetterly's artwork/portraits, "Americans Who Tell the Truth," from his website onto a large screen via a LCD projector. The class then discusses a few highlighted Americans. Over a week's time, students review the portraits through the class Moodle website link of the same site with their families, the teacher teaching students how to do this in class so that they can access/use it at home. This allows for the values/perceptions of the family to be shared, thus bringing parents back into the education equation. This takes 3-5 class periods including an attendant directed lesson on how to use the classroom webpage research links, as well as a week’s time for students to read and discuss Shetterly’s portraits with their family during homework time.

Lesson 2 (Week 2)

Exploration and Online Collaboration of Personal Truths: In another session, continuing with topic of perspective and truth, students brainstorm their own truths about life, and their role in it, beginning from an egocentric perspective to a global one. Teacher directly instructs students in class on how to use the forums and post and respond to discussion threads within the forums. During homework, they record and share their "truths" in the class online web page forum. They categorize their truths by participating in different discussion threads under this main idea. This takes 2-3 class periods including the attendant directed lesson on how to use the forums on the classroom webpage plus a week’s time for students to post during homework time.

Lesson 3 (Weeks 2-4)

Mini Internet Research: After both class and family discussion, students choose one of the American portrait individuals from Robert Shetterly’s body of work for an internet mini-research report, which they present to the class on 5-7 self-narrated Power Point slides, while the audience takes notes and critiques. This lesson takes about 2 nights homework online research (or 2 class periods doing computer lab research) and 2-3 classroom periods working on Power Points in the computer lab.

Lesson 4 (Weeks 1-4)

Art Lesson-Oil Pastel Self-Portraiture: Meanwhile, during these couple of weeks, in a series of four art lessons, students learn art elements and principles involved in portraiture and create oil pastel self-portraits, incorporating these elements and principles, including scale and proportion. This is followed up by choosing one of their truths listed in the online forum and with the use of Photoshop; they layer the text onto a digital copy of their artwork (done by camera or scanner). This takes 5-7 periods of class time.

Lesson 5 (Week 5)

Presentations and Closure: After the artwork is completed, digitized and compiled into a slideshow, students lead the class themselves in a discussion as they present their own truth portraits in front of the class using a laptop, LCD projector and large screen. This takes about 5-7 minutes per student and can be spread out over a few days or a couple of weeks.

End of Unit Assessment (Week 5 or 6)

Integrated Writing Assessment: The unit culminates with a persuasive writing assessment convincing the reader of how the teller's perspective often can color the "truth" being told as history, giving examples from learning about US History thus far and discussions in class and at home. Students must also include how their personal involvement in the process of this unit helped them gain a better understanding of the concept. (This takes 3-4 class periods for brainstorming, outlining, rough drafts, self-editing, final drafts and self assessment using the writing rubric.)

Presentation to School & Community (Follow Up Weeks)

Sharing with the Community: Finally all student truth portraits are printed and made into a series of panels for a large mural and discussion piece at school or in the community. A book of all portraits can also be compiled and published as a class memoir for the end of the year or for sale at a school art show.

Assessment: (See Teacher Resources Page)

1.) Art Rubric for Oil Pastel Self-Portrait [rubric of use of 5 strands of visual fine art]

2.) Technology Rubric to assess all technology portions of the project. Note: Each portion can be done immediately after a given task is completed instead of waiting until the very end of the unit to complete the entire rubric.

3.) Rubric for Persuasive Writing Essay about how history can be biased depending upon the perspective of the teller [covers 3 areas: social studies content standards, and standards in writing skills, and language conventions]

4.) Power Point Presentation critiques by class & a combined Technology/Social Studies/Language Arts Rubric for scoring. [covers history research content and process, text organization, graphic layout, and language conventions]

NOTE! All rubrics are distributed at onset of lesson and require self-assessment before the teacher assesses.

5.) Checklist/record by teacher of participation in the collaborative web-based community of Moodle (class website and forums) and involvement of family in the homework portrait assignment.

6.) Integrated Report Grading Sheet for social studies, technology, reading comprehension, vocabulary, writing process, and listening/speaking grades during presentations.

7.) An effort grade will be included in all assessments/rubrics.

Standards: GRADE 5

Social Studies: Exploring perspectives of US History, including recognizing one's social responsibility in history making (overlaps all units studied at any given date taught)

Reading/Writing/Language: reading and presenting informational text, main idea, supporting details, incorporating technology, persuasive essay writing, listening and speaking, language conventions, writing process, research and use of technology.

Art: All 5 strands: creative expression, criticism, history, aesthetic, and connections

Technology: presentation skills (Power Point, LCD projector & remote), digital imaging (scanner, Photoshop and iPhoto), and collaboration in online communication and collaboration (Moodle, forums-discussion threads, internet), word processing (Power Point, Photoshop), research & authenticity of websites (search engines and sites)

Overall Timeframe:

20 or more 50-minute classes (Integrated unit covers about 5-6 weeks)

Technology Hardware/Software Needed: