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Portraits: Barriers to Healthcare, Culture, Beauty, & Identity

How can we understand and overcome cultural barriers to healthcare access in Wyandotte county, and how can we celebrate the variety of cultural backgrounds and identities in our school and community through art?

Instructor

Anna Underwood

Anna Underwood
Fine Arts Teacher, F L Schlagle High School

This Unit is designed for students to experience artistic representations or “portraits” from a variety of cultures in a gallery setting. Students will research health disparities in Wyandotte county in a variety of ways, including group, individual, and as a class. Guest speakers will visit the class to share information about health disparities to students including mental health disparities/statistics.

Students will do their own research into their own cultures or into a culture of interest to create their own representations of portraits that showcase many of the listed qualities we have seen in professional artists work on our gallery visit or through their own research.

Main Objectives

  • Students will learn about the history of portraiture and how to analyze various cultural symbolic elements, expression, personality, temperament, identity, beauty, and tension within a portrait.
  • They will develop artistic concepts to express and/or make a commentary on the health disparities in Wyandotte county to highlight and provoke a sense of understanding and action to the school, community and KUMC.
  • Students will present their work in a public format along with their artist statements and talk about their work.

 

Unit Lesson Plan

Unit Overview


Lesson 1 “Entry Event: Attending an Art Exhibit (i.e. 30 Americans Exhibit)”

In this lesson, students will be receiving introductory information about what a portrait is and what important qualities we can see in them. Investigating introductory information necessary to build a foundation for the project.

Students will:

  1. Pick out two artworks to compare and contrast and write down info or take a picture
  2. Identify portraits and representations of the human form in various cultures and look for similarities and differences

Lesson 1 Resources

  • Permission Slips
  • Transportation request forms
  • Allocate transportation
  • Guide at the Museum
  • Volunteers

Download Lesson 1 Plan


Lesson 2 “What is a portrait?”

This lesson is designed to provide introductory information about what a portrait is and what important qualities, we can see in them. Investigating introductory information necessary to build a foundation for the project.

Based on prior knowledge, students will:

  1. Break down expectations
  2. Analyze symbolic qualities
  3. Analyze portraits from various artists,
  4. Come up with a working definition of what a portrait is

Lesson 2 Resources

  • Copy paper for blind contour drawings
  • Pencils
  • Presentation

Download Lesson 2 Plan


Lesson 3 “Symbolism and Identity in Portraits”

This lesson is designed to go more in-depth into the introductory information about what a portrait is and what important qualities we can see in them.  This information is necessary to build the foundation for the project.

Students will:

  1. Understand the concept of symbolism and identity as it relates to portraits
  2. Write an exit ticket to define symbolism and identity. Students will create their own practice visual examples of symbols in the format of a poster
  3. Be able to define symbolism and identity and be able to identify these elements in various artworks and apply this knowledge to the research of their own project.

Lesson 3 Resources

  • Note-taking guide for students
  • Presentation
  • Poster materials/exit tickets.

Download Lesson 3 Plan


Lesson 4 “Creating Work: making meaningful connections and communications in artistic works”

This lesson is designed for students to create meaningful works that represent and reflect the connection of ideas about health disparities in Wyandotte County through the expression of student’s artwork.

Students will:

  1. Understand how to connect/express health disparities in their artwork
  2. Be able to create a finalized version of artwork and talk about the concepts and ideas expressed in it relating to health disparities.

 

Lesson 4 Resources

  • Art mediums selected for the class or type of art to be created
  • Presentations of examples of professional and student works that represent relevant ideas and are high-quality examples
  • Scoring Rubric

Download Lesson 4 Plan


Lesson 5 “Presenting Work”

This lesson is designed for students to present their work, research, and the culmination of their artistic concepts to educate, start a dialogue and provoke change in their community regarding health disparities in Wyandotte county.

Students will:

  1. Understand the significance of presenting their work to the school/community along with their artist statements in a professional way.
  2. Be able to prepare their work for presentation, write an artist statement, and present their work verbally in front of a group/community.

 

Lesson 5 Resources

  • Examples of finished, framed work

  • Examples of artist statement, and artist description

  • Guide for students to answer to create their artist statement and description

Download Lesson 5 Plan

TSCORE-LIFT KS

University of Kansas Medical Center
TSCORE-LIFT KS
3901 Rainbow Boulevard
Kansas City, KS 66160
913-588-5000